


La Canción de los Pistolas

by auburn



Category: Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)
Genre: Action/Adventure, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-18
Updated: 2009-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-03 07:51:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 65,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auburn/pseuds/auburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do you do with a blinded, psychotic ex-CIA agent?</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Canción de los Pistolas

**El Hombre Sin Ojos **   
_  
Once upon a time in Mexico, there was a gringo, El Hombre, the handsomest gringo to ever cross the border. He was neither kind nor good, but he wasn't so bad either. As El Hombre was walking along one day, a little yellow bird flew over his head and began singing. Being in a hurry, El Hombre wanted the bird to go away, so he threw a gold coin at it. The little yellow bird caught the coin in its beak and flew away and used the coin to buy food for its family and thought El Hombre was muy bueno. _

_Now, this gringo, he was clever, though not quite so clever as he thought he was. One day he met the Most Beautiful Woman in Culiacan and fell in love. El Hombre did not know that his lover was really a witch and the daughter of an evil don. _

_Then El Hombre found out that the evil don and a greedy general were plotting to kill El Presidente and take over Mexico. El Hombre didn't really care about El Presidente, but he thought if he saved him, El Presidente would reward him well and he could run away with the Most Beautiful Woman. _

_El Hombre knew he could not face the evil don and the general and all their men by himself, so he cleverly decided he must have help. Only one man could stand up to a general and that was the great hero of Mexico, El Mariachi. The gringo knew that El Mariachi no longer wished to fight, but only to make guitars, so he tricked him, by telling all of the evil don's soldiers where El Mariachi was living, so he would have to come and fight. El Mariachi did not like this, but he agreed that general and the don were both evil and El Presidente was a good man, so he would come to Culiacan to fight beside El Hombre. _

_The gringo was so proud of this trick, he told the Most Beautiful Woman his plan. No one could defeat them if El Mariachi and El Hombre fought together. _

_On the Day of the Dead, the Most Beautiful Woman betrayed El Hombre and brought him to her father, the evil don, and they put out El Hombre's eyes so he could not go and fight beside El Mariachi. And then the evil don and the Most Beautiful Woman started toward the Palace at the center of town to kill El Mariachi and El Presidente. _

_But El Hombre would not give up. When the evil don and the Most Beautiful Woman left him behind to die, he stood up and walked after them. But he could not see which way to go, until the little yellow bird flew up and sang in his ear that it would be his eyes. _

_When they looked back and saw him, the evil don and the Most Beautiful Woman sent one man to kill him, because surely it would not be hard to kill a blind man? But they forgot that El Hombre was clever and he could only be killed by a man who could look him in the eyes. When the man tried to look into El Hombre's eyes, he could not because they were gone, and so he died. _

_Now, when the evil don and the Most Beautiful Woman were almost at the center of the town, they looked back again, and there was El Hombre walking behind them. So they sent two men to kill him. _

_The little yellow bird told El Hombre that two men were coming to kill him, but he could not see them to shoot them. So El Hombre told the little yellow bird to fly away. When the men saw this, they laughed, and when they laughed, El Hombre knew where they were and killed them. _

_Now, the evil don and the Most Beautiful Woman had reached the Palace, but when they looked back, they saw El Hombre Sin Ojos waiting in the square at the center of town. So the evil don sent the Most Beautiful Woman back to kill El Hombre instead of facing El Mariachi with him. And that was the end of the evil don, of course. _

_The Most Beautiful Woman forgot her father's orders when she saw El Hombre, because he was still the handsomest gringo to ever cross the border. Instead of killing him, she kissed him. When she did, El Hombre knew who she was, and he killed her for stealing his eyes. But El Hombre's heart broke to do it and he no longer cared about any reward for saving El Presidente and did not go in to fight beside El Mariachi. _

_So El Mariachi killed the greedy general and was offered any reward he wanted for saving Mexico from evil. But all El Mariachi wanted was to live in peace and forget all his sorrows, so he walked out of the palace and away and into the center of town. _

_That is where El Mariachi found El Hombre Sin Ojos, weeping tears of blood over the Most Beautiful Woman. And because El Mariachi knew that the Most Beautiful Woman would have killed him too, he took El Hombre Sin Ojos away with him, back into the west, where they could both forget. _

_ **Alacran y Pistolero** _

The drugs were wearing off, whatever Guevara had dosed him up with before drilling out his eyes.

Sands thought he should have been writhing and screaming after what was done, instead of coming to and staggering out the front door. They hadn't expected him to pull himself together enough to get out or they would have strapped him down. The guard outside hadn't even known what they'd done to him or Sands couldn't have pulled the trick that let the kid kick him the gun back. But now the pain was swimming through the opiates and he couldn't take it much longer.

The kid. The kid had been good. The kid had come back and even got him this far. Sands laughed raggedly. So he'd told him to fuck off again. Had he heard the bike bell tinkle as the kid peddled away? He couldn't remember through the agony starting to take over his thoughts.

Oh, fuck. Fuck fuckity fuck, it really hurt now. He'd still been stoned when Ramirez walked by, too proud or just too shocked to beg for help.

_"Be seeing you."_

Sonovabitch.

_"Fuck you."_

He clutched at his arm, feeling the sticky warmth of his own blood soaking through the sleeve of his shirt.

Whatever that shit had been, he wished he had some more.

He rolled his head against the wall he was propped against, feeling his hair catch in the rough stucco. The bullets in his legs hadn't hit anything lethal like an artery, or he'd have bled out in the plaza before Ajedrez even showed up, but they hurt in a distant way. It was the wound in his arm that hurt most, more even than the hollowed-out, bloody wounds where his eyes had been. He was getting weaker with every breath, too.

The kid had still been there when Ramirez walked away.

_"Are you all right?"_

What kind of stupid question was that, anyway? He'd been shot three times, there was blood running down his face and his eyes were gone. How the hell could he be all right? Stupid damn kid.

_"No sé."_

_"You will be."_

And you know this how? Ah, hell, he could feel the sun on his face, it had to be late afternoon by now, but there was still gunfire in the distance. Just get out of here, kid, it isn't safe to be out on the street. Go home, keep the money, forget today. Forget the stupid blind gringo who thought he had it all wired.

Did he say any of that?

This was Mexico, how could it be so damn cold?

_"Señor?"_

"Fuck off, okay?" he gritted out. "Go on. Nothing to see here." Another rattling laugh escaped him. Nothing to see.

_"See anything you like?" _

_"No." _

No, you traitorous, beautiful bitch, you made sure I can't see anything. Christ, why didn't you just kill me? Did you pull the wings of flies, too? Ajedrez, you made me forget the rules. You … I almost … I could have .… Well, so much for that, lover, now the flies are feasting on you. Kiss kiss, bang bang.

"See you in hell," he whispered.

She was dead.

He was dying.

It wouldn't be long.

He could still hear the sounds of fighting, so much more fighting than he could have imagined. It was supposed to be a coup d'etat, not a civil war in the streets. Marquez' men were supposed to be intercepted before they rolled into Culiacan. But his team had no guns, no way to get the job done. Everything had come undone. He knew Ajedrez was dead and Ramirez had said...had said he'd got one of them.

Barillo or Guevara?

He should have asked. He wished he'd asked, so he could know. He just wanted to know before he let the darkness drown him completely. Had Marquez done it or had the Mariachi stopped him? Was El even alive or had Cucuy sold the poor fool to Barillo when he sold out Sands?

Sands took in a hissing breath. The pain was eating through him. He pressed onto his wounded arm and realized he was still holding the cell phone Ramirez had thrown at him. He'd heard the object moving through the air and caught it instinctually.

He could use it to try to call for help from the Agency. Except the only number he had had been compromised. In the taxi when he'd tried calling for backup, there had been nothing, no answer, just nothing. They'd cut him off, given him up and left him to fend for himself. It was what they always did. Not exactly surprising he'd wanted to grab the money, the girl, and get out. He'd known they were getting ready to screw him over.

He managed a cynical smile. He'd really screwed the pooch when he'd trusted Ajedrez with his plan. The Agency hadn't needed to set him up or take him out, his girlfriend had done it for them. Wouldn't they be pleased when they found out?

Screw them anyway. He just wanted to know who he was going to meet in hell.

Maybe, just maybe, if El Mariachi had survived, he still had the cell Sands had given him along with Marquez' picture. It was worth a try, he decided. Not like he was going anywhere or had anything else to do.

For a long minute, he couldn't force his brain to give up the number. When he remembered, he had to fumble and press the tiny buttons with his thumb, by feel.

Then he waited, not really expecting anything.

But the tone that signaled that someone had answered sounded. Just a breath, no words, and Sands knew that his inside man had made it after all. He caught his own breath and said, remembering to sound flippant, "Are you still standing?"

El Mariachi replied the way Sands hoped he would, just the way he had after the church shoot-out. "Still."

Sands smiled, ignoring the pain that ran through his face from his violated eye sockets.

"So Marquez isn't."

_"Sí_."

Sands lets his head drop back against the wall. He almost let go of the cell. What more was there to say? Marquez, Ajedrez, Guevara or Barillo, they were almost all gone. Their play was finished, it was time for the final curtain to come down. Time to let go …

"And El Presidente is still alive," El said, sounding pleased and defiant, thinking this would throw a spoke in Sands' plan.

It wouldn't please the CIA, but personally? Sands couldn't give a toss. He'd never had anything against the President of Mexico, just orders to preserve the status quo and keep the country weak, divided and corrupt.

He laughed, thinking about it. "Am I good or what? I knew you would save him." El had done exactly what Sands had predicted.

"You … knew?"

Sands said lightly, "El, El, my friend, why else would I want you involved? Cucuy could have killed Marquez. I was going to walk away with Barillo's money and Ajedrez and leave your good man alive as one last, big, fuck-you to the Agency."

El obviously missed that Sands had spoken in the past tense.

"My friends have the money, Sands."

The other mariachi gunslingers. Cucuy had said there were two of them, a pretty boy and a drunk. Sands bared his teeth.

"You know," he said, "if I wasn't having such a bad day, that would really, really get up my craw." He laughed harshly and began to cough, each cough jarring his wounds and making his head throb agonizingly. The words spilled out when he could breathe again, "Fuck, that's starting to hurt. Guess the drugs are wearing off."

"Sands?"

Sands concentrated on breathing through the pain and not screaming. The pain burned and stabbed through him now, but he'd begun shivering too. He clutched the phone, glad for any contact, any voice to accompany him into the long dark. He couldn't watch the sun set along with his life, his light was already gone, and he was so cold now.

"Sands?"

He didn't want El to hang up and go away, so he said breathlessly, "I made just one wee miscalculation, you see, El. Ajedrez. I told her everything … Love really fucks you up, doesn't it, El?" He began coughing again, bringing up something that tasted like blood, and couldn't bite back the moan of pain that came with it. Oh, damn, had he said love? He didn't want to admit that, not to El, not to himself. He didn't want to die a pathetic loser in love with a woman who had used him. He tried to sound angry. "She set me up. I had to dust the bitch. She just … stood there … and watched them do it."

That was not a sob and if it was, it was from the pain, the physical pain of having his eyes gouged out. He didn't have a heart. Maybe that was why Ajedrez had had Guevara take his eyes instead .…

"Sands?" El asked. "Do what?"

He couldn't say it. He didn't want pity, just the company of El's voice for little while longer.

He thought he heard El say something else, but couldn't be sure, the throbbing waves of pain were filling his head, obscuring everything else.

"Sands? _Where are you?_"

Confused, he asked, "Why? You want to come and kill me?" It didn't matter. "The main square." He added, "You can put me out of my misery."

Maybe El would deliver him with a merciful bullet to the head.

"Stay there."

He managed a raw chuckle and whispered, "Really, El, I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be."

The call disconnected.

He was cold and alone in the dark. Maybe … maybe he should just do it himself, Sands thought wearily. He tossed the cell phone away, heard it crack, and fumbled for a gun.

~*~

Some time after he'd started back toward Culiacan, El had stripped El Presidente's sash off and let it drop in a ditch. That wasn't Mexico. Not his Mexico. His Mexico was dust and sun and blood, cocaine and murder, silver and lead, love and grief, both bitter and empty.

He thought of the phone call from the CIA agent and sped his steps. Sands had been slipping away even as they spoke and even though El knew the man was a ruthless killer, El felt some concern. Strange, but there had been enough killing, enough death for the day. No matter that he despised the man for the manner in which he'd drawn El out of his solitude. Sands had given him not just revenge on Marquez for Carolina and his daughter's deaths, Sands had allowed him to stop the coup d'etat. Sands had set things up to stop Marquez and Barillo, and even if El had killed El Presidente too, Mexico would have been better served than to have one of those two in power.

A battered truck with a back full of chickens stopped beside him. El accepted the ancient driver's offer of a ride into town, but warned the man of the chaos that still reigned on the streets, of the fighting between citizens, cartelistas, and renegade military. His benefactor just nodded, his face seamed and crumpled and brown as a walnut and creasing into a toothless smile, and said that no matter what, someone would want the chickens. Everyone had to eat.

He dropped El off within walking distance of the main plaza, where black scars and blood marred the steps leading up to the presidential palace and a tank still burned, its tracks lost on one side and the hatches blown open. A soldier's body hung half off the main gun.

El hefted his guitar case and turned toward the square, searching for Sands, wondering if he would find the man, if he was even still there.

Instinct told him he was close as he found the bodies of two cartelistas dead on the cobblestones and a woman in black fatigues sprawled near another smear of blood and an arm. El looked closer and blinked. A false arm and a dropped, empty automatic pistol.

Sands' words on the phone replayed in his mind. Ajedrez. _"She set me up. I had to dust the bitch. She just … stood there … and watched them do it."_ He looked at the woman again. She'd been shot point-blank. Even dead, she was beautiful, and El suddenly remembered her. This was the woman who had brought him away after he escaped Barillo's estado. He'd thought she was AFN, but he'd seen something dark and avid in her eyes. If she had been AFN, she would have wanted to ask him questions. He thought of the way she'd stroked his cheek with muzzle of her gun. She'd been a woman who would watch, he thought.

He looked around and saw a blood trail wavering away. Without any more thought, he followed it into a quiet side street.

At first, he thought the body was no more than a shadow along the base of the burnt-orange wall. Then a gleam off the leather vest caught El's attention and the figure of a slender man resolved itself from the dusky shadows.

El strode down the narrow street, stepping over tattered bits of fallen banners and forgotten masks. It was Sands, sunk down on the cracked sidewalk, back against the wall, all in black. The CIA agent's head lolled back and his pale face was stained with something dark under the sunglasses that hid his eyes.

El saw a shaking hand raise a gun to take wavering aim at him and hesitated. The cell phone he'd pictured in Sands' hand was tossed in the gutter. He knew if Sands could have gone any farther he would have. That meant the man was wounded and wounded things, wild things, were at their most dangerous when trapped.

He took another two steps toward the fallen man. The spur on his boot rang in the eerie almost silence overtaking the city as the sun set in a bloody blaze of red.

Sands whispered hoarsely, "You came."

_"Sí_."

Sands' hand holding the gun was shaking. He laughed and rolled his head to face El head on. The stained light painted the blood running down his face black.

"Well, no, I can't," Sands said. He almost convulsed with a giggle that hinted at madness. "That's a joke. _Sí_, see. See?"

El carefully stepped closer and crouched beside Sands. So close he saw the wet gleam of blood running from wounds in his arm and legs, seeping into the pavement.

He asked, "You shot the woman in the square?"

Sands answered, "One last kiss and bang, so long, Ajedrez, you hellbitch." His breath caught and he let the pistol drop from his hand. " - Now are you going to kill me?"

El heard what Sands hadn't said, in the wistful tones of his voice. "Do you want me to?" he replied. He thought if the man wanted to die, it would be simplest to just leave him. He would die soon enough if just left, or use the gun he'd held onto until now.

Sands cocked his head a little and licked dry lips. He lifted his good shoulder in a half shrug and winced.

_"No sé."_

He let his hand drop limply to his side and tipped his head back, exposing the long, pale line of his throat, in a gesture of vulnerability and submission. Whatever El decided, Sands wouldn't try to stop him.

El brushed the gun away from Sands' fingers and reached forward, slipping the sunglasses away from Sands' bloody face. A small moan escaped Sands, who had begun shivering. Shock, El diagnosed. He'd been shot enough times to know how blood loss stole the warmth from flesh. It was amazing Sands was even still conscious. The American hid a will of steel beneath the sarcasm and the sneering tourist attitude.

He drew in a harsh breath as he saw the bloody ruin the glasses had concealed. El thought the eyelids might still be there, lost under the clotted red-black mess of blood, vitreous humor and swelling, though his first thought was that everything had been cut away.

Gently as he could, El slid the sunglasses back into place. His fingers brushed Sands' cheekbone though, and the man flinched his face away, whimpering once.

"Who did this?" he asked in horror.

It was worse, in a way, than Marquez' murder of Carolina and his daughter, which had been swift, at least. No one who could inflict such torment deliberately should live. El would exact vengeance for this atrocity. He needed only a name. A new crusade, a new target, a new goal, something to keep him on his feet and moving, because he had nothing else. The American had given him his revenge, now he would give him this too. How ironic, that the man had said he had nothing to live for, then provided him that.

Sands, whispered, "Ajedrez and Guevara." He shuddered. El winced in sympathy.

He had heard of Guevara. He clenched his scarred hand. That was the one the sad-eyed man had shot, before El finished Barillo off. And Ajedrez Sands had killed himself. So there would be no revenge for Sands' eyes.

The one time he had really seen Sands, had been when Cucuy brought him to the Agent from Villa Perdidos, after killing the guitar-maker. He remembered Sands as too clever and laughing, a young Lucifer still clothed in beauty, with eyes even darker than El's, eyes to match a night-black soul. Was that why they took Sands' eyes, for their dark beauty? Did the blood of his suffering wash away any of the sin from Sands' soul?

It did not matter. Killing, El understood. Revenge. Justice. Even Sands' half-mad concept of balance made more sense than this atrocity. He might have killed Sands himself, even a day before, but torture and vandalism were alien to El. Perhaps Sands deserved to die, but El thought no one deserved to be shattered like this.

"Why?" he asked, not expecting any answer from Sands.

"Why not?" Sands answered. He licked his lips. "I'd … _ seen_ … too much, Barillo said." His hand curled into a fist.

"Guevara is dead," El told him gently, "So is Barillo, if that helps."

"Not really."

El dropped one knee to the pavement and gently took hold of Sands and began drawing him up. The man's slender body stiffened in pain.

"What? What … are you doing?" Sands exclaimed, suddenly almost panicked.

"Getting you out of here. You need a doctor."

Sands murmured bitterly, "A bullet's cheaper."

El shook his head, then said, _"Sí_. Pulling the trigger is easy."

He heard the echo of his own words, long ago, as Sands muttered, "But you have to do it the hard way."

He smiled. _"Sí_."

They stumbled to their feet. El was startled by how light the American was, how whipcord lean and stubborn under the black clothes and pretty face. He guided the man along the street, heading for the hotel room he'd never checked out of. When Sands' last strength ran out with the fresh blood from one of his wounds, El slung him over his shoulder and carried him the rest of the way, guitar case in his other hand.

They were seen, but no one asked any questions.

After laying Sands on the bed, El cleaned and dealt with the wounds as best he could, then left in search of a doctor. Sands' eyes, or what was left, needed more than El could provide.

The doctor he found was nervous and horrified, but did everything that could be done for Sands and left El with instructions and antibiotics, along with a bottle of strong painkillers, before leaving. Sands remained unconscious through the process and the first night, thankfully.

Fever and delirium consumed the American the next day, left him crying out and cursing, clawing wildly at the bandages over his eye sockets, until El was too exhausted to do more than tie him down and collapse into sleep beside him. He forced water and painkillers down the man's throat, along with the antibiotics, and redressed all his wounds each day while the drugs kept Sands unconscious and unaware.

He sang old lullabies and mariachi songs sometimes, trying not to listen to Sands' desperate, fevered pleas to Ajedrez. He ached with his own remembered pain over Carolina and thought that if you loved, then losing an illusion could be as painful as losing the truth. Sands was not a man who would have trusted easily nor have called what he felt love, but El suspected that was what the man had felt: in his tortured dreams, Sands didn't call out for his sight, he called out for the woman who had taken it.

El's voice seemed to bring him some comfort, though, and his touch; though at first, even unconscious, Sands had flinched from his hands.

As the third day dawned, Sands seemed to be sleeping somewhat easier. El left him just long enough to fetch new supplies, a meal, and a bag of oranges. He opened the doors to the room's small balcony to vent the scent of sickness and medicines and watched the people on the street. Culiacan was already returning to oblivious peace, the marks of the Day of the Dead quickly fading. He peeled an orange and ate it section by section, licking the juice from his fingers, and turned back to the room as he heard Sands begin to stir.

~*~

Sands was suffocating, drowning, trapped. Fever seared his flesh and lead chained him down. He couldn't escape. He couldn't open his eyes.

He was blind.

He understood he was awake when he remembered he was blind, when delirium left him stranded in the barren desert of the truth. There was only pain and darkness. His world was black. He was lost.

He had no idea where he was.

He tried to take stock. He was in a bed. A streak of heat over the skin of his cheekbone was … sunlight from a window. He was in a bedroom with a window. He took a breath. The sheets smelled clean, the room faintly musty, and there were fainter scents, of dust, diesel exhaust, a tang of citrus sharp like the rind of an orange. Not a hospital, he thought. He turned his head toward where he thought the window was, gasping as a needle of pain ran from his eye sockets into his head. The sun was warm on his face now, except across his eyes.

What?

Sands tried to lift a hand to touch his face and couldn't. He jerked, breath whistling in, feeling cloth binding his wrists down. He was tied down. He was blind and he was tied down, he didn't know where. Panic blasted through him and Sands threw himself into fighting the bindings wildly. Pain from his gunshot wounds, pain from his wrists, pulsed through him but he ignored it, trying desperately to tear himself loose.

He heard the sound of footsteps, the faint jingle of chains - chains? - as someone approached the bed. He kept writhing against the ties, a harsh whine at the pain escaping him. Chains, chains, he knew that sound …

A weight descended on the edge of the bed. Warm, rough, calloused hands pressed his shoulders down. Sands smelled dust and copper, ghosts of cordite and blood. Oranges again. The man had been eating an orange, the zest scented his fingers.

"Easy, easy," El Mariachi breathed softly. Voice like whiskey smoke, like burnt honey seeping into Sands' mind through his ears, and so familiar, so familiar. So practiced. "Sh, sh, sh." Like he was soothing a trapped animal, like he'd whispered and gentled Sands a hundred times before. Sands swung his head toward the man and snapped at his hand.

Missed, damn it.

"Let me loose, fuckmook," Sands tried to snarl. It came out as a near soundless croak, his throat was raw and dry. The Mariachi still pressed his shoulders down.

"Sands?"

He heard the other man's breathing pick up, the rustle of cloth, the jingle of those damn chains on the man's pants. Fucking Jingle El, Jingle El, jingle all the way; God, Sands was grateful for the sounds, something to hear and know and recognize in this wasteland. He heard the scrape of a boot on the floor, the distant sound of traffic on a street, faded voices, church bells.

"Fucking bells," he breathed hoarsely, but he stopped fighting and fell back into the mattress like a puppet with its strings cut. Helpless. Hadn't he been the puppet-master before, the man pulling the strings?

"You're awake."

"Unless this is the worst fucking dream of my life," Sands said bitterly.

Deft, strong fingers plucked the ties around his wrists loose. Sands immediately tried to lift one hand to his face. The Mariachi caught it.

"No."

His grip was firm but light.

"El?" Sands didn't try to pull his hand away. The touch of the Mariachi's hand felt like the only thing anchoring him in the world. It was his lifeline in the endless darkness. He licked his lips. "Why?"

El answered only the obvious. "You kept tearing the bandages from your eyes." He let go of Sands' wrist.

"What eyes?" Sands whispered desolately. He wrapped his arms around himself and curled away onto his side, rocking, trying to hold everything in. "They're gone."

"This is true," El replied. "But it will not help you if the wounds become infected. Do you want to make the scarring worse?"

"Like this could be any worse. You should have let me die."

_"Sí_."

El scooted onto the bed. His hands ghosted over Sands' hair, then down across his bare shoulder. Sands shuddered, realizing his was naked except for various bandages. He let El draw him close and turned until his face rested against the folds of the Mariachi's soft shirt and he could hear his heartbeat. He brought his hand up and caught a handful of cloth, clutching it tightly. He was shaking. El pulled the bedding closer around Sands and then ran his hand up and down between Sands' shoulder blades. Over and over, until Sands was limp and still.

_"I wanted company in hell, I think,"_ El whispered. Sands didn't know if the man understood that he was still awake or not. _"We are both dead, now."_

"Oh," Sands muttered. "That makes sense."

El stilled, not even breathing, his hand unmoving on Sands' back. Finally Sands lifted his face toward El's unseen countenance. "Did I thank you?"

"No."

Sands snorted and rolled away. "Well, don't expect me to, shitwit." He clumsily scooted up to sit shoulder to shoulder with El. Unconsciously, he stroked his fingers over the rough weave of the cheap sheets, wondering if they were white or dingy. He would never, ever know.

Fuck, he hurt.

His hair was falling over his face, tickling against his cheeks and jaw, catching in his stubble. Maybe he would grow a beard, save himself the trouble of shaving. He thought of food getting caught in a beard and shuddered at the thought of looking that fucking pathetic. No beard.

Cautiously, he pushed his hair away from his face. It was greasy and made him want to wash it, to stand in a shower of hot water until he'd scrubbed Mexico off him and could forget, could pretend his eyes were just closed and not gone.

He fingered the gauze bandages wrapped over his eyes like a blindfold.

"Leave those alone," El commanded.

Sands curled his fingers into a fist. He wanted to ignore the man and rip the bandages away. Somewhere in his head there was still a wild hope that if he did, he would find himself able to see again.

Slowly, he lowered his hand into his lap and opened his fist.

His head drooped and his shoulders slumped.

El got off the bed and jingled off somewhere. Sands didn't care. Didn't pay any attention when the man came back, nor to the clink of a dish being set down on a stand by the bed. El sat down on the bed's edge again. A hand picked up Sands' and wrapped it around a glass. His fingers slipped against cool condensation and El steadied his hand.

"Drink."

Shakily, Sands lifted the glass and took a cautious sip. Cool water, the most delicious he'd ever tasted, touched parched lips and washed over his tongue and down his aching throat. Helplessly, he gulped more down, losing a trickle out of the corner of his mouth. El pulled the glass back.

"Slowly. Slowly."

Sands wanted to protest, but the cold water had hit his empty stomach like a lead weight. It threatened to come up again. He breathed hard through his nose and dry swallowed until it settled. His whole body was shaking again, he realized in disgust.

He managed to nod.

El tightened his fingers around the glass, then let go once Sands was holding it steadily.

"You need to eat something."

Sands tried another, small sip of water, let it soak into the dry tissues in his mouth and slowly warm before he swallowed. When his stomach didn't threaten outright rebellion, he nodded.

"Okay."

~*~

El watched unguarded expressions flash across Sands' face, amazed at how much he could see without ever looking into the man's eyes. Sands had been a handsome man, almost pretty, El remembered from their single face to face meeting. A man full of secret laughter, the Hanged Man smiling as he turned everything inside out and upside down, and danger had shimmered off his surprising stillness. Now, he was bleached bone, drawn fine and sharp and still unpredictable, somehow as beautiful as he was brittle. Vulnerable.

Aware of that vulnerability, too, and frightened by it, El saw. His own stomach rolled at the prospect of waking, blind and tied. Sands had been like a trapped bird, beating and breaking his wings against the cage, wild to fly when he never would again.

El slowly and carefully fed Sands a small, plain meal, worried by how little the man would eat. Finally, he peeled another orange and fed the plump sections to Sands with his fingers. Sands silently took each piece and licked the juices from El's fingertips with a delicate pink tongue tip. El shuddered at the sensation; it was the most intimate touch he'd felt since Carolina's death.

Sands felt it and cocked his head. "El?"

_"Sí_?"

"Just making sure you're still there."

Sands was lying. He had to feel El's presence on the bed. But his silence might have disturbed the blind man. He summoned an almost smile and then realized it meant nothing to Sands, who could not see it.

"Still here," El murmured instead.

Sands ran his hand over the coverlet until he came to El's thigh. He hesitated, then skated his palm up. Unintentional or not, it felt like a caress, and El burned where he was touched. He grabbed Sands' hand and lifted it. Sands immediately twined his fingers into El's, hanging on so tight his knuckles shone white.

"The doctor left antibiotics," he said. "You need to take them."

He felt the flinch run through Sands at the word doctor. He wondered briefly before making the connection. Guevara.

"I don't suppose he left any kick-ass drugs, because - " Sands swallowed hard but forced the last words out and gestured at his bandaged eyes, " - this really, really is starting to hurt."

"He left painkillers," El said. "I'll get them for you." He let go of Sands' hand as though it was a burning coal.

"Yeah," Sands muttered flatly, "you do that."

El returned with the vials of painkillers and antibiotics and slid the pills into Sands' palm, then handed him the glass of water again. Sands clenched his hand on the medication, then silently swallowed all of it down. He shoved the glass in El's direction, almost spilling the rest of its contents, and when El had it, slid down in the bed and curled in on himself again.

El set the glass a safe few inches back on the nightstand and left it. He took the medication away, not sure if Sands would choose such an escape, but not willing to give him the chance. Afterward, he went back to the chair on the balcony and the guitar he'd left leaning against the rail. He picked it up and began picking out a slow melody.

He was irritatingly aware of Sands lying on the bed, facing him. He was sure the man was awake, imagining the fierce falcon's gaze Sands would have trained on him in a some other nightmare. Sands was too still. Neither of them spoke though and El went on playing the old tune.

It was the one his brother had taught him.

He wondered if Sands remembered it. But something, some lessening of tension in the air made him look up and listen. Sands' breath came evenly and he'd uncoiled. One hand flung out over the pale yellow sheets, half open. He had gone to sleep.

~*~

Sands drifted in and out of sleep, still barely able to discern any difference between the two. He rose closer to the surface as evening set in, feeling the air change. The sun no longer touched him. Cool, faintly moister air slid into the room through the window. He pulled the sheet and blanket higher.

"Awake?" El asked.

"Yes," Sands said tiredly. He listened, identifying the sounds. He could find El by the chains chiming quietly. He heard something set down with a soft thud. Sands frowned and decided: guitar case. Faint hinge squeak and then a latch being closed teased at him, until Sands identified the sounds, as a balcony door being shut. The air went stiller in the room and began to warm. Boot soles on bare wood was El walking to the bed.

Twin thuds.

Boots.

Soft rustling sounds of cloth made Sands' frown.

"What are you doing?"

"There's only one bed," El said calmly.

"Oh, golly, that's just great," he muttered, "You just better not get any ideas," but the Mariachi ignored him and stretched out with a soft chime of chains. Sands listened in absurd, growing disgust as El settled into the bed with a sigh and swiftly fell asleep. He'd never gone to sleep so easily in his life. With a sigh, he rolled his head on the rather flat pillow. The bastard didn't even snore. The soft rhythm of his breathing was rather soothing though, Sands decided sleepily. He fell asleep listening to it, curling closer to the body warmth and human presence without realizing it.

~*~

Despite himself, Sands grew used to sharing the bed with El. The Mariachi didn't thrash around and didn't object to waking up with Sands plastered next to him. The first morning Sands had been freaking right out, but El had just shrugged and rose, coming back later with coffee and breakfast that he insisted Sands eat. Nothing was said.

The third day after he woke - which he gathered was about a week after _El Día de los Muertos_ \- El took away the breakfast dishes and returned with Sands' clothes. He tossed the bundle on the bed and dropped the boots on the floor beside it.

"We need to leave now," El said. "We've been here too long."

Sands felt through the clothes and awkwardly began to dress. It was different without sight. The clothes felt right, though, and he wondered if they were his. Found the answer when his fingers grazed a darned hole in the arm of the shirt. Bullet hole. Matched the one in his arm. He wondered if El did the sewing and grinned to himself. When he'd dressed and was sitting on the edge of the bed, he turned his head toward where he could hear El standing and breathing and asked hopefully, "Guns?"

El snorted and walked over. Body-warmed metal pressed into Sands' hand. He examined it with his fingers. Small, a twenty-two, a familiar weight, like, if not the same, as the one he had carried down his pants. He checked to make sure it was loaded, thoughtfully keeping the muzzle aimed at the floor - but not at his feet. Hell, even sighted guys blew their boots off if they got careless, he knew. Heard a sound of approval from the Mariachi as he double checked the safety by touch and slid the gun into his coat pocket.

Then El's hand was at his elbow, guiding him to his feet and toward the door, Sands supposed. He doubted El had nursed him this far to push him over the edge of the balcony.

Yep, the door.

"Stairs," El said economically at one point.

He had to feel his way down, lowering his boot slowly, but after the first step he knew the height of the steps and moved not unconfidently.

"Last three steps," El told him, saving him from trying to step through the floor. El wasn't bad at this, not condescending, just providing the information Sands didn't have eyes to catch. He wasn't treating Sands like they had scooped out his brains along with his eyes, at least.

He shadowed along beside El, listening to the other man's steps, the chimes on his pants making an excellent guide, stopped when El stopped, a step behind him. A small thud was the guitar case settling on the floor briefly.

"Where are we going?" Sands asked, balking.

El froze for a second, but then recovered.

"Down the stairs, out the front, then the curb. The car's on the left," El said and opened the door. Sands was right behind him, resisting the urge to reach forward and curl his hand into El's waistband. Instead he tucked it in his jacket pocket and curled his fingers around the .22.

Happiness_ was_ a warm gun.

**The Strange Face of Love**

Days on the road brought them to Villa Perdidos, late in the honeyed air of last light. Long black shadows stretched eastward. Dogs and children were running home for dinner; the scent of cooking was on the subtly cooler breeze that heralded dusk. The villagers still in the square were quiet, watching with dark, questioning eyes as El parked the battered convertible in front of the old monastery. Maybe they sensed the death that seemed to cling to him like a pall of invisible smoke.

They would not have expected to see him again. Not after Cucuy drove him away, holding a guitar and under a dozen guns, while the guitar-maker's blood stained the dusty stones of the market square.

El stared back at them, half in defiance, half in apology.

Sands had been sleeping in the backseat and woke.

"Why are we stopping?"

"We're here."

Sands didn't even sit up. El thought he might be too weak and ill and that worried him. "Here, where?" Sands asked in his light, flat tone that conveyed complete disinterest. He hadn't even lifted his head.

But why would he? El acknowledged. Sands wouldn't see anything.

"My village," El said.

"Guitar Town." Still, the tone was empty and disengaged.

"_Sí_."

El got out of the car and opened the door behind the driver's. Sands flinched when he touched him, then silently sat up and allowed El to guide him out of the car. El let him lean against the side while he pulled out a duffle bag and the guitar case. When Sands still didn't speak, he cast a worried glance at the man.

Sands had his arms wrapped around himself and his head hanging. The red T-shirt El had bought in one of the towns they'd passed through hung on him, highlighting how thin the man was becoming. Sands never asked to eat and only did when El insisted. With his face half-turned away, the veil of his dark hair concealed the white gauze pads taped over his eye sockets. The long, vulnerable line of sharp jaw, lean tendon and bare neck caught El's eye. Something twisted painfully in him when he looked at Sands too long, something he wished he could blame on the man, but El knew Sands was completely oblivious to this effect.

Sands had never been a fifty peso mariachi fuck.

Sands had become steadily quieter since they left Culiacan. El didn't know how to deal with him. He didn't think Sands would welcome any overt comfort. El wasn't sure he had any comfort to offer. Sands' life had been shattered, just as El's had been. Nothing could make that better. Sands didn't even know what El intended with him. El didn't know himself.

He realized he'd been just standing, staring at Sands, when a scuffed footstep made Sands' head come up. El turned and saw the old man, the priest who had made guitars with his now-dead brother, approaching.

Sands could barely stand on his own, but he half-turned toward the sound and his hand slipped under the long, loose tail of the T-shirt and found the .22 tucked in his waistband at the small of his back. El dropped the duffle in the dirt and took three fast steps to Sands' side. He caught the fine-boned wrist and stopped Sands from drawing the gun.

"Your men killed one man here," he said in a low voice. "You won't kill any more."

Sands' muscles tensed in resistance beneath his hand, but he nodded. El let go after another instant and Sands didn't move. He almost wished Sands would make some snide, defiant remark. He didn't like this new, quiet Sands. He seemed … broken.

_"You are home,"_ the old priest said, a sad smile on his face.

_"Padre,_" El acknowledged.

Wise, dark eyes moved from him to Sands and studied the pale figure. His mouth shaped a silent word. _Blind?_ El closed his eyes. _Sí_.

_"Let me help carry your things inside,"_ the old man said.

_"Thank you, padre."_

El hefted the guitar case himself, though. The padre picked up the dropped duffle. Sands lifted his head and walked beside El. A frown of concentration pulled his fine, dark brows together. El deliberately slowed his stride and walked heavily. He was forced to take Sands' arm when the other man stumbled and almost went down.

Sands didn't draw away or fight him.

The padre had the doors into the old monastery open and waited, his face creased with sadness.

The echoing stone and adobe building was dark and cool inside. Sands immediately began shivering. Their footsteps echoed, louder than El remembered. He guided Sands' faltering progress through the halls back to the room he'd made into his after Carolina and his daughter died.

The bed was there, just as it had been the day Cucuy and his men roared into town, shot a good man, and took him to meet Sands. The blanket on top hadn't even been straightened. A soft haze of dust covered everything. El's hand tightened on Sands elbow abruptly as anger coursed through him. Sands tried to twist away from him and almost fell.

El roughly pushed him down onto the bed. "Stay here," he told Sands. Sands tipped his head at a curious angle, then nodded tiredly and sank down on the bed.

El watched him for a long moment, until Sands' weary, irritated voice startled him.

"Are you going to just stand there forever? Because I can feel you staring."

El set the guitar case down with a thud and stalked out of the room.

Behind him, Sands' light, lilting words floated in the empty room. "A moody mariachi. Perfect. I _am_ in hell."

_"You have changed, my son,"_ the padre murmured as El stalked into the main hall where he was waiting. El clenched his fists.

"_Sí__, padre."_

_"You are angry now, but not haunted."_

El nodded and opened his hands.

He brushed his hair away from his face and found a piece of leather in his jacket pocket to tie it back. He bowed his head. _"I destroyed the guitar." _

The padre rested a gnarled hand on his arm. _"But you are alive now, __sí_?"

El hesitated, but slowly nodded again.

"_Sí_."

The numb hollowness that had been his existence since Marquez killed his family and left him for dead had finally closed over. Perhaps he had filled it with his revenge. He was not sorry for killing Marquez. What he had done on the Day of the Dead filled him with satisfaction. Marquez and Barillo would destroy no more lives and the President was alive, the coup a failure.

Lorenzo and Fideo were rich. His lips quirked. He had boxes of money in the trunk of his car too, thanks to their quick thinking. He'd found the money and a note in his hotel room when he'd brought Sands there. He knew it was money Sands had meant to steal and it amused him that now he was using it to care for the man.

Sands …

_"Who is he, my son?"_ the padre asked, as though reading El's thoughts.

How did he explain a man like Sands to this good, kind priest? Sands, who had killed for only his own reasons, who danced along the knife edge of madness, treated his life and others as a game to be played, all of it with the thoughtless cruelty of a child. Sands, who had no guilt or regrets when he killed. Who blithely sought to defy and cheat the cartels and the military. The man who had drawn El back into the world of blood and guns … and life. A man who suffered now, not for the wrongs he'd done, but for trusting and wanting the same things El himself had lost: life, a love, and freedom. The padre would not understand. El didn't think he understood Sands. He wondered if Sands even understood himself.

_"A victim of the cartels,"_ he murmured at last. It was the truth, just not all of it. Not enough, said his conscience. Haltingly, he added, _"He is … a bad man, padre, but … perhaps not as bad as he wanted me to think."_

_"So you are helping him,"_ the padre mused, _"because you are not sure."_

El said, _"I am sure that if he dies, then Barillo wins again - even dead."_

_"He is hurt very badly."_

_"Yes." _

_"I will bring the doctor here." _

_"Tomorrow, padre. Tomorrow." _

_"I will bring you some food, then."_

El was too tired to care much, but he thought of the way Sands' bones had felt beneath his hand, and knew the man needed to eat. _"Gracias."_

_"You are tired, I can see. I will bring enough for your friend, too." _

_"He is not my friend,_" El objected.

The padre only smiled and walked out.

El sighed and walked back to the dim bedroom. Sands was curled on the bed, his still booted feet hanging over the edge. Dusk leached the color even from the T-shirt, shaded the slender form in a chiaroscuro of pale and dark. He looked like an exhausted child.

El pulled the boots off and lifted Sands' feet onto the bed. Then he toed off his own boots and stretched out beside the sleeping man. It was instinct to pull Sands close when he shivered.

Nothing more, he told himself.

~*~

Three days passed after they arrived at Guitar Town. The first one, Sands barely stirred from the bed, too sick and exhausted to even protest when El's padre arrived with a doctor in the morning. He silently tolerated the unknown hands checking the bullet wounds and only fought back briefly when the doctor went to peel away the bandages over his eyes.

He lost it a little then, cursing and trying to tear himself away, until El's hands locked on his shoulders.

"Sands, lie still," El told him in that hot sun and dust voice.

Sands rolled his face away from the doctor's hands, but stilled under El's hands, the gentle weight more soothing than restraining. His panicked breathing slowed, though his heart kept hammering fast and wild. He couldn't control the tremble of horror that fluttered through him, couldn't stop the hopeless protest from escaping him.

"Don't … please."

_"Señor, it is necessary to check,"_ the doctor said quietly. _ "Please hold still."_

El took one hand from his shoulder and grasped Sands' chin. He gently turned Sands' face away from the pillow. "It must be done," he murmured. He brushed long strands of hair back from Sands cheek and absently kept stroking. Or maybe not so absently. The slow, repetitive motion gave Sands something to concentrate on as the tape was peeled away from brow and temple and cheekbone. There wasn't any real discomfort yet, but he found it somehow sickening anyway.

Sands tried to breathe steadily and not move. The doctor removed the first pad of gauze, delicately teasing it free from scabbed blood and lymph crusted on his eyelids and eyelashes. The feel of it tugging away made Sands' stomach roll.

A sucked in breath by the doctor told him it wasn't pretty. He gritted his teeth.

_"The tearing to the eyelids should have been stitched. There will be scars."_

A gurgle of ugly laughter escaped Sands. El sighed.

"Could you just fucking finish it," Sands muttered.

His eyelids were pried open. It felt like a fistful of razor sharp metal shards being ground into his brain. The doctor kept the examination and cleaning quick, but Sands lost track anyway. He was vaguely aware of a new gauze pad being taped over one eye and then the whole process was repeated on the other. This time the pain seemed worse, multiplied by the stabbing ache in his head from the first one. He bit his tongue to hold back the scream rising through him and his mouth flooded with his own blood, the thick salt taste only adding to his nausea.

Cold sweat coated him and he was shaking before the doctor left. El walked the man out. The instant Sands heard them step out of the room, he rolled onto his side, stuffed a corner of the pillow in his mouth, and allowed himself to whimper at the pain. It was too much.

He didn't hear El return. Those already familiar hands were tugging the pillow away and pulling him close the next thing he knew. He obediently swallowed the painkillers El offered him, eager for once to sink into the oblivion they offered him. After that, everything melted into the hollow daze that kept sucking him down, and he didn't wake again until the next day.

Necessity forced him to his feet, stumbling for the door then, battering himself against sharp corners and sudden edges, hands flailing into the emptiness around him when his balance dissolved into the nothingness. Sands wanted to fall down on his knees and crawl. Instead he forced his feet forward, stumbling, noticing the shocking difference as his bare foot left a rough wool rug and touched down on cool tile. He found the door standing open, bruised his hip against the doorknob and snarled curses as he hung onto the jamb and tried to figure which way the bathroom would be.

Left, he decided arbitrarily, and staggered in that direction, brushing his shoulder against the wall and periodically stopping to just lean. Two doors down, he found the object of his search and emptied his complaining bladder with a sigh of relief. He had not wanted to yell for El's help. A little more groping around found the washbasin and he washed his hands slowly. Either there wasn't a towel or he couldn't find it by waving his hands around, so Sands settled for wiping them on his sagging jeans.

He didn't quite make it back to the bedroom, though, and was pathetically grateful when El showed up and helped him the rest of the way. Sleep sucked him down again as soon as he sank down on the bed. He was vaguely aware of El undressing him like a child, but didn't care.

The third day he surfaced to the sound of El's guitar. He listened to the plaintive notes, recognizing the song, and found himself whispering the words without thinking about it. El's music never faltered or Sands would have stopped. Instead, he let his voice strengthen and follow the song to its end.

As the last note faded into silence, Sands cursed himself.

El said, "I did not know you could sing."

"Obviously, because you don't know dick about me," Sands snapped. "And I don't sing."

"Mmn."

El followed the wordless noise by setting the guitar aside - Sands heard that - and walking over to the bed. Hating the feeling of helplessness that went with being flat on his back, especially without sight, Sands dragged himself up. It was an iron bedstead and the bars were cool against the bare skin of his back. He was stark naked again. What the hell was it with the mariachi and undressing him in his sleep?

The back of El's hand pressed against Sands' forehead, startling him. He jerked his head back and knocked it against the bed frame with a painful clunk.

"The fever is gone," El stated.

Come to think of it, he didn't feel like he was being slow roasted for the first time in forever. He did feel drier than a desert, though.

"Well, do you think you could do something about me being thirsty enough to drink the filthy stuff you call water in this country?" he snapped back.

"Get it yourself," El told him shortly.

"Fine. Where?" Sands slid to the edge of the bed and pulled the sheet around him as he wobbled to his feet. "And where the hell are my clothes?"

El wrapped a big hand around his upper arm to steady him. "Your clothes are over here." He guided Sands to a table and set his hand on the folded T-shirt and jeans. "Get dressed and we will eat."

Getting dressed took more energy than Sands wanted to admit. He could feel El watching him, too. Presumably El just wanted to make sure Sands didn't fall over, crack his head open, and bleed all over the rug. It still made Sands remarkably conscious of his body, when he'd never been particularly body shy before.

As he picked up the T-shirt, his fingers brushed something beneath it. Sands stilled, then let himself feel the distinct shape of a gun. He pulled the T-shirt over his head and picked up the gun. Of course, there was a gun, he thought, El wouldn't feel dressed without a gun and so 'clothes' would always include one.

He found the belt and belt holster coiled beside the gun. Even sightless, threading the holster onto the belt and belt into his jeans, came naturally. When he slid the gun into the holster, a sense of relief rolled through him. Even barefoot and blind, he would be able to defend himself.

El strode over to the door and waited as Sands followed him more slowly.

"Right," he said as they stepped into the hallway. He led Sands into a cornmeal-scented kitchen and seated him at a plain table. Sands waited quietly as El prepared a meal for them both after first opening a refrigerator and bringing him a bottle of water. "Here."

Sands twisted the top off and drank. He remembered to take it slowly this time. When he sat the bottle down, he said, "Thanks."

El made an indecipherable sound.

Sands wiggled his toes against the sun-warmed tile floor and tried to think. What did he do next?

He was alive, when he should have - would have - been dead, except for the mariachi. No one, not even Ramirez, knew that.

He wasn't penniless, he had accounts and fallbacks that no one had ever known about, back-up plans he'd put together never believing he'd need them. It might be a little more difficult without his eyes, but he could manage. He had contacts and with money, he could …

He could …

He curled his hand into a fist on the table top.

He could … go back … there wasn't anyone alive except El to say what he'd really been up to after finding out about the coup. There were some ruthless bastards - worse than him even - with the CIA, but they wouldn't have him taken out just because El Presidente hadn't bought it on the Day of the Dead. No one, no one outside his own head, had ever known that he'd guessed El Mariachi wouldn't kill the man. Ajedrez had known he meant to make off with Barillo's pay-off money … but Ajedrez was as dead as the rest of them.

They wouldn't kill him.

Sands dug his nails into his palm.

They'd take one look at what Guevara had done, and once they'd puked their guts out, they'd _pity_ him.

He shook his head sharply.

They'd fucking debrief him until his brains ran out his ears, they'd send him to psychiatrists and trauma counselors and pay to send him somewhere to learn to live with his 'disability', and then they'd pension him off like a used-up whore. Or if he couldn't fake sanity for long enough, if he slipped - and how the hell do you pretend to be sane and stable after having your eyes ripped out? - they'd lock him away somewhere because he was a danger to himself and others.

Which he was and always had been. Sheldon Jeffrey Sands shouldn't be trusted, anyone reading his last psych write-up could have read it between the lines. That was why they'd sent him down to Mexico. You didn't assign assassinating the President of a neighboring country to a good guy, after all.

One way or the other, though, they would get rid of him as fast as they could. No one would want him hanging around, reminding everyone of just how bad any operation could go. A pension, pity, and a pink slip were all he could expect from the Agency.

_Fuck that,_ he said silently to himself. _ Fuck that and fuck the Agency and fuck the horse they rode in on, too_. He couldn't tolerate that.

He forced his hand open and pressed it palm down against the cool wood of the table top. Sticky blood glued his skin to the wood. He took a deep, shaking breath. It had been a long time since he'd had to do that, had to hurt himself to rein in the festering rage that lived inside him.

"What are you doing, Sands?" El asked.

He tipped his face up and smiled his best, sweetest, you-have-no-idea-how-much-I-want-to-kill-you smile. Once, he would have had to keep the murder out of his eyes too, but that wasn't a problem now. "Thinking," he said softly.

"Try eating," El said and set a dish in front of Sands. A utensil clinked on the plate.

"What is it?" he asked. His nose told him, anyway, the warmly delicious scent of eggs and salsa reminding him how long it had been since he ate last.

"Eggs," El told him laconically. He picked up Sands' hand and put a fork in it.

Sands tried a bite. His stomach didn't rebel, so he tried another. Eating neatly without being able to see wasn't as easy as he'd have thought, but he went slowly. Tapping around the plate with the tines of the fork found something else he identified as some sort of sausage. Several warm, folded tortillas were next to it.

El sat down opposite and silently ate, too.

Sands' thoughts kept running in circles. What the hell was he going to do? Exactly what were the options for a blinded, ex-CIA agent? What did he have to live for now, anyway?

There wasn't a human being on earth who gave a damn if he lived or died, he realized. In the end, he wasn't even important enough to hate.

He stopped eating and just sat.

Maybe it would have been better if Ajedrez had just killed him. Better than this. Or if he had simply bled to death lying there after he shot her, better if the kid hadn't come back, if El hadn't saved him.

Balance.

Where was the balance in what had happened to him?

He dropped the fork onto his plate, winced at the noise, and braced his elbows on the table, dropping his face in his hands. Part of him was aware of the picture he must make, part of him didn't care. The gauze and tape over his eyes rasped against his palms. He itched to tear the bandages away. His fingers curled inwards.

He heard El slide the plate away, but didn't move.

He wasn't going back to the States. He wasn't going back to the CIA. He wasn't a CIA agent anymore. He wasn't ever going to see again.

El walked around the table and set his hand on Sands' shoulder. The warm, steady weight of that hand slowly soaked into the cold, choking blackness. Sands took a deep breath and slid his hands up through his hair. Then he dropped them to the table and straightened a little. El's hand tightened.

"El," he said softly.

"Sands?"

"I can't … I'm blind," Sands said bleakly. "I don't know how to do this."

"You'll learn," El declared. The hand resting on his shoulder promised that El would help. Sands couldn't imagine why the mariachi would do that, any more than he understood why El had saved him. He couldn't make himself ask why either. Not yet. The answer might destroy the delicate balance he had held onto since waking up blind.

There really wasn't anywhere he wanted to go, Sands thought. All his dreams of escape, of another life, of taking Ajedrez with him, were dust.

All he had left was El's hand and the sudden knowledge that he didn't mind that touch. For the first time, he wasn't alone.

Sands didn't know how to deal with that. He hated the very idea of needing anyone, but he wasn't going to let go or give up the strange companionship El had offered him so far.

He frowned.

He wanted to stay.

Well, wasn't that just dandy? Apparently, he really had lost his mind somewhere along the way. Anyone sane would want to get as far away as possible from anything that reminded them of this place and what he'd lost, but not him. No, he had to fixate on a revenge-obsessed guitar player turned assassin.

God damn Mexico.

~*~

El was startled to discover that the American could sing. In fact, Sands' voice was much better than his own. Persuading him to sing, though, was another matter. He'd finally decided Sands was _embarrassed_ by the talent.

His efforts to get Sands to sing as the days went by finally earned him a punch to the belly, a split lip, and a snarling, spitting, clawing, backed-into-a-corner Sands.

He gave up.

Perversely, once El stopped pushing him, Sands remarked snidely, "Fine, you want me to sing for my supper? Get me some shades and I'll be a regular Ray fucking Charles."

But when he sang, El was ready to forgive much. American rock'n'roll, Mexican pop, tango ballads, country and western, blues and bluegrass, Sands knew an amazing variety of songs, including what he called Broadway and show tunes.

He'd sing in English and Spanish and a couple other languages El didn't know, including French. He'd start a song out of the blue and keep going until El joined in with the guitar.

El finally figured out why Sands was reluctant to sing, though. It wasn't embarrassment, it was vulnerability. When Sands sang, he couldn't focus his hearing on his surroundings. After that, El let Sands choose when to sing, knowing it was a gesture of trust when the man did. Mostly, he sang when he went up on the monastery's high walls or quietly when they were alone.

~*~

He had no bloody idea when it became more than neither of them wanting to sleep on the floor. El had been sharing his bed, soothing his nightmares, since he woke up blind. He'd grown so used to El's touch, any absence made him miss it, when before he'd never liked anyone touching him. Touching, yes, but he always wanted to be the one doing. He'd always wanted control.

He even fooled himself he had it, most of the time.

Lost it with Ajedrez, though, and lost badly. He hoped El wasn't going to be as bad a mistake. He didn't have much more to lose.

Enough to miss, though, if he lost it, so he let El make the first real move.

Pretended to be still asleep when El pulled him closer, relaxed against the big, furnace-hot body, comfortable. Slow, shallow, steady breaths as El hovered a hand over Sands' face. He could feel it in the air, a subtle pressure. Then a calloused thumb was stroking along his cheekbone.

Just that touch and Sands was melting, soft sound escaping his lips. Cock swelling embarrassingly fast. El's hand cupped his jaw, lifting his face. Sands pressed himself against El helplessly. His breath caught. El trailed his fingers over Sands' mouth and he opened, touched his tongue to them, tasted and sucked them in. His hands molded El's hardened body, trying to see with his fingertips. Warm skin and scars and he needed to be closer, skin to skin. Sands wasn't in control at all.

El slipped his fingers away and Sands whimpered. Hated himself for sounding so needy, but whimpered again and tucked his face against El's neck and tasted him there, kissing and gently biting. He was undulating against El now, too turned on to help as the Mariachi undressed them both.

El's hands smoothed over his back, streaked fire down the valley of his spine, played over his ribs and tested the hollows between each one, sliding down over Sands' flanks. He shuddered. El's hands on his hips guided him, pulled him up to sprawl over El's body. Sands found El's face with one hand, tried to trace it, but he was shaking too hard.

"Sh, sh, sh," El whispered. His hands gentled over Sands.

Sands slid down and found one of El's nipples. He tasted of salt, blood, lime. Sands licked it up, scraped his teeth over the sensitive flesh and smiled in delight as El twisted beneath him. He moved to the other nipple and treated it to little cat-licks, blowing on it in between.

El's hands were threading through his hair, fingers pressing into his skull, and he was growling. His erection pressed against Sands. Sands went still, forgetting to breathe.

_What the hell was he doing?_

He laid his cheek against El's chest and tried to think through his arousal. El's heart was beating fast, but not hammering its way out of his chest like Sands'. He didn't sleep with men. He never had, though he hadn't given a damn who did. El's hands on him felt so good but suddenly he was petrified. Hard as a rock, leaking pre-cum, and too scared to move. Not scared of suddenly being with a man, but of doing this with _El_. How far was this going to go and who was going to do what and … _Oh, don't be ridiculous,_ he told himself. _You think macho gunboy is going to bottom? You know where this is going, Sheldon. Suck it up._

Find a different idiom too, because 'suck it up' might be just little too literal in the circumstances. A bubble of hysterical laughter hovered in his throat.

He was fucking terrified of what might come after they both got off, though, because El already meant more to him than was healthy. Or sane. Though sanity was over-rated, in Sands' opinion. Jesus, he was already like a textbook example of Stockholm Syndrome.

El stroked his hair. "Sands?" he asked in a low voice.

_"No sé_," Sands whispered.

"You don't like this?"

Sands shook his head, then nodded. He trailed his hand over El's shoulder, left it there. He was too confused.

"If you do not want to - "

El started to pull away and Sands latched onto him as tightly as he could. "I want to," he choked out. "I want to, okay, I just don't want you to blow my brains out in the morning." At least not with a gun, some irreverent part of his mind commented.

Soft, rumbling laughter spilled from the Mariachi. He relaxed and pulled Sands up and began kissing him. Sands responded mindlessly, letting El's tongue into his mouth, kissing back with all the skill and excitement he felt.

He was lying between El's legs, rubbing against him almost unconsciously, and gasped when his cock brushed against El's. A sigh slipped out of his mouth as El snaked a hand between them and wrapped it around both cocks. The friction, the silky heat and firmness, threatened to blow the top off Sands' head. His hips jerked and rocked as El found a rhythm that pumped them both together. Should have known the guitar-playing bastard would have a superior sense of rhythm.

Sands moaned against El's neck, unable to hold his head up, and pushed into that expert touch. Fuck, El was good. He kept running his own hands over whatever parts of El he could reach. Slickness from both of them mingled on their cocks as they slid together. El twisted and squeezed his hand, and then traced his fingers in patterns against the glans like he was playing a complex chord.

Sands whined and jerked into El's grip, desperate, urgent, needing with every fiber in him. Then it was just too much, too much wound too tight, and he came, felt the hot wet heat and surge of El coming too, and for an instant everything went white, light crashing through his brain. He groaned in pleasure and helpless, desperate longing, and collapsed against El. Fell into his darkness again, the semblance of light and sight locked away from him once more. Found out to his horror that his tear ducts still worked.

He was heaving for breath, slick with sweat, shaking in the aftermath, and leaking fucking tears. Before he could take another breath or pull himself away from El, Sands was folded tight in El's arms. El locked his mouth on Sands and drank the sound of pain and sorrow and loneliness until nothing was left and Sands thought he would pass out. Only when Sands was limp and compliant against him did El let him breathe.

He had nothing left. Whatever he was, whatever remained of Sheldon Jeffrey Sands, had just been pledged to El.

What had Ajedrez said? _Pathetic little monkey._ Sands laughed silently and added_, Lamebrained, dick-whipped, fucked up little blind monkey._ He kneaded his fingers against El's shoulder. He had this much. _Burn in hell, Ajedrez._

El settled him more comfortably. "Stop thinking," he murmured against the top of Sands' head. "You think too much."

Sands laughed raggedly.

He didn't know how they'd got here. Didn't know what happened next. He couldn't go back, though. He knew that. There was only forward. Maybe it didn't matter that he couldn't see. Everyone walked into the future blind.

~*~

El set the blue guitar in Sands' arms without warning. He immediately noticed that Sands held it naturally, in the way of a man who has played. Long fingers ran up the neck, touched the frets, slid down the steel strings, and unconsciously shaped chords.

The guitar was slate-blue, silver-chased, lighter than El's instrument. Curving cut-outs decorated the body, graceful, note-like forms. How it had come to the market in Villa Perdidos, where it had come from, no one could say. He'd known it would fit Sands the instant he saw it, though, sensed its sharp, pure tones would ring with the same lilt as the American's voice. He bought it immediately, following the same instincts that kept him alive in a gunfight, without hesitation.

"I was going to ask if you wanted to learn to play," he said.

Sands cocked his head. A black bandanna formed a blindfold over the gauze pads that protected the still healing scars underneath. Sitting in the sun in the square the last few days, eating again, staying in one place, had been good for him. A faint tint of gold now colored the pallor of his face. Some of the strain had faded from around his mouth.

"Why?"

It was the strangest part of Sands, that constant 'why?' he asked whenever El, or anyone, did anything kind for him. El found himself thinking that Sands simply didn't know that anyone could treat him well. It made him wonder about Sands' past.

He didn't ask. Not yet. Maybe not ever, El acknowledged to himself. Sands wouldn't trust his reasons for asking.

"I see you listening whenever anyone plays." He paused. "I can see the music moving through you, hear it when you sing."

"Oh."

Sands strummed a few chords, then picked out the beginnings of a song, stumbling and clashing for a moment, then relearning an old reflex. Just as El thought he would recognize the song, Sands flattened his palm over the strings and muffled the guitar.

"It's been too long."

"No," El insisted. "Your fingers remember."

Sands shook his head. "Really. I was always more of an electric amps kind of guy. Not acoustics. I'm a long way from those garage band days." Something forlorn in his voice spoke of wanting to turn back if he could, though.

El shrugged. "Maybe you will change your mind. The guitar is yours."

Sands brushed his fingers over the strings soundlessly and shook his head. A long strand of dusty black hair fell over his face, escaping the tie that held the rest of it back. He set the guitar aside - carefully - and got up.

"I'm tired," he muttered and walked away, unerringly heading his way back to the monastery. El watched him go. Sands' shoulders were straight, his gait without hesitation. He only drooped and fidgeted when he thought no one would see. He only relaxed completely when El coaxed him into sleep. The man was always braced for a blow, still and waiting, and curiously that wasn't a change. El remembered that coiled readiness from their first meeting.

Later, he brought the guitar into the bedroom, deliberately jostling the strings as he set it in a corner. Sands betrayed no interest, but El knew he had heard and marked it.

He was learning to read Sands. The man was more like a cat than anything, always walking alone. Curious and cruel. Sands wanted to know things. No, Sands _needed_ to know things, _needed_ to feel in control, if only of himself.

He didn't doubt for an instant that eventually Sands would try the blue guitar again. He had only to be patient.

~*~

_"I see a red door, I want it painted black."_

Sands was playing from memory, sitting high above the village on the monastery parapet. He'd found a place on the far side of one of the bell towers, where he could lean back and let the sun warm him and stay well out of sight of anyone. Out of earshot too, he knew. Because if he couldn't hear anything from the square, he knew damn well no one else could hear him.

It wasn't that he was hiding that he'd started playing the guitar El had given him. It just wasn't something he wanted an audience for.

It was a piece of a past he'd pretty much tossed out when he left Austin. Playing guitar was a reminder of a gasoline-scented garage, puberty, screaming amps and screaming parents. The States. McDonalds, apple pie, highways to forever, clean toilets, English, rock'n'roll on the radio, blond girls, cops who weren't pulling triple their paychecks from drug smuggling fuckmooks. Nothing he couldn't live without. Everything he'd never imagined he would miss.

Not that he did, really. Only the perverse part of him that resented being denied anything, whether he actually wanted it or not.

This wasn't the same, though.

The chime of El's pants signaled his approach. Sands kept playing as El sat down next him, hip to hip, the line of a long thigh along his. His voice hitched, but his hands stayed steady.

El leaned close enough his breath was warm and moist in Sands' ear.

"It has a good tone."

Despite himself, Sands tipped his head toward El.

A warm, calloused hand glided over his side and wrapped around his waist. El worked his fingers beneath the tail of Sands' T-shirt and rested his fingertips against bare skin. Sands was so hyper-aware of that touch that his world seemed to shrink into that single area of skin. It almost burned.

He tried to keep playing, but his voice died and his fingers tangled in the strings. A tremble ran through him. Excitement, arousal, fear … he couldn't distinguish between them. El's touch was pleasure and pain. El's fingers rubbed tiny circles against his skin, just under the waistband of his jeans.

"You have a good touch," El murmured. This time his lips just touched Sands' ear, sending a shiver through him that ended with a damning heat at his groin.

"Don't - "

El gently disengaged Sands' hands from the guitar and set it aside. Then his hands locked on Sands' waist and drew him over to sit between El's legs. He pulled Sands back until they were locked together chest to back, in contact from shoulder to hip. A different kind of heat than from the sun soaked into Sands, promising to melt his bones from the inside out.

"Oh, okay, that's not what I meant," he said.

He let himself sag back against El. His head dropped back against El's shoulder. With a soft sigh, he turned and bit into El's neck, tasting clean salt sweat and musk, the faint metallic tang that was blood. El's hands roamed over Sands' chest and down to his belly.

Sands caught his breath. He was already half hard. El's knees were bent, his thighs enclosing Sands. One hand found the Mariachi's knee and clamped on it. The weave of the pants' fabric felt harsh under his palm. He ran his other hand up and down El's leg, fingers playing with the chains on his pants.

El dipped his head and caught at Sands' lips, insistent and tempting, until he opened his mouth. His strong, slick tongue invaded Sands' mouth, tasted him, played with his tongue until Sands was moaning into the other man's mouth. El tasted like a hot desert wind, like the best tequila, like the scent of sandalwood and the rasp of a cat's tongue. Sands was dissolving into him, while El's hands moved possessively over his body. One hand pushed up under his T-shirt to find a suddenly sensitive nipple. The other worked its way inside Sands' painfully tight jeans.

He rocked forward as El closed his hand around his erection. Calluses caught at silken skin with exquisite friction.

"El," he muttered against the other man's warm lips. "El, El." A hoarse sound of pleasure followed. "Fucker."

El's lips brushed softly along his face, the sensation somehow magnified because Sands couldn't open his eyes and look. Teeth grazed the tender skin just behind his jaw. El's hand tightened on his cock, just enough to tease.

Sands was panting. His hands were clenched on the chains on El's pants. He squirmed, trying to press himself harder into El's grip. He rolled his head from side to side, losing himself in urgent need for more touch, more stimulation, though it was already almost too much. When he pressed his hips back, El gasped. Sands pushed back, feeling the hard evidence of El's arousal against his ass. When he did, El's hand locked around his cock, stroke after stroke driving Sands the rest of the way insane.

But El wouldn't bring him off. Sands wriggled a hand behind him and fumbled at El's pants. It was an awkward angle and made his elbow ache, but was worth it when his fingers found their way in and curled around El.

He couldn't really jerk El off like that, but apparently his touch was enough to spur El on to the next step. El had Sands' jeans unbuttoned, unzipped and dragged down fast after that.

He could feel the sun on his suddenly bared flesh. The touch of the air was cool, but the sun heated delicate skin too. The contrast sent a shudder through him. "Oh, God …"

"Not God, _amigo_," El whispered in his ear, hands opening his own pants and pressing another heat against Sands; hot, hard cock pushing between his thighs and nudging the back of his balls.

He let out a harsh breath and pushed back. El's arms locked around him again and one hand ran down his belly. Long, deft fingers threaded through his pubic hair. Sands imagined what that looked like, while he tightened his thigh muscles and rubbed back and forth over El's cock, eliciting a long, moist moan against his neck. El's hands were big - his memory provided a picture of El's hands on that unfinished guitar, honey-brown skin, blunt nails, wide palms, and the pale, unstained wood - they'd be dark against his own pale skin, arrowing down through silky dark hair, beautiful contrast. El stroked his fingers so lightly it almost tickled and Sands shifted his hips in annoyance, wishing El would just quit dicking around and start jerking him again.

Then he laughed breathlessly.

"Are you fucking petting me, you bastard?"

_"Sí, mi gato."_

"Well, pet a little damn lower."

El obliged and Sands' awareness narrowed down to his groin, to El's hands on his cock, El's cock rubbing against his ass and inside his thighs, to the tight wound spring of pleasure that threatened to completely undo him. El came first and his hand tightened just that much more on his last stroke, sending Sands over the edge after him.

Awareness hazed out until he could breath steadily again. He was still wrapped up in El's arms, still bare-assed, and the sticky, cooling mess of their mingled come was drying on him. Okay, that was something he'd never considered about sex with another guy: twice the clean up, double the wet spot. Sands twisted and buried his nose against El's neck, snickering to himself.

_"What?"_ Faintly indignant.

Sands smiled, because El couldn't see it, and shook his head. "You want to give me a hand here, not that you haven't already - " snickering again and El's deep chuckle vibrated through him, " - big guy, but I'm feeling kind of sticky and that definitely isn't sunscreen on me."

El let go and Sands gave up on the cleaning-up portion of the program and just wriggled his jeans back up, wincing when barely healed flesh and scar tissue pulled where he'd been shot. Why the fuck did it have to be both legs, anyway? Of course, that didn't compare to the whole eye-gouging thing - because who _did_ that? - but it was still annoying. As would be a sunburn on his even more important bits, which were not inured to the Mexican sun.

He assumed from the sounds that El was tucking himself away too.

His legs wanted to wobble a little when he stood up, but Sands wrote that off as the bullet wounds. A little groping found the guitar. His memory told him how many steps to the door onto the stairwell. He headed that way, calling over his shoulder, "Are you coming?"

The sound of El's footsteps told him he was.

"I thought we just did," El said from just behind him.

Sands stopped in his tracks. "Oh, my Christ," he said, "you made a funny. Wait, wait for it, this is definitely a sign of apocalypse." He grinned and dodged away just as El's hand would have clamped onto his shoulder. The feel of the air, a pressure wave ahead of the movement, had told him what was coming.

He sprinted down the stairs, trailing one hand along the cool, plastered wall, keeping count of the steps in his head. His muscles still twinged, but here in the old monastery he could move with confidence. He'd explored and measured off every inch of the crumbling building. Blind, he knew this place better than he ever would have sighted. That let him move fast enough to stay ahead of El.

Which translated to reaching the washroom and hogging all the hot water. It was really more like lukewarm water, but the point, Sands felt, was to get it all for himself.

~*~

Sands didn't sprawl. He curled into a protective ball or plastered himself against El, if he was asleep. Asleep, the damage wasn't so apparent. Asleep, he didn't push away El's hand when he threaded it through Sands' hair. Asleep, he turned toward El, and not away.

Asleep, he whimpered, trapped in the web of nightmares, until El caught his hands - such surprisingly delicate wrists, El's strong fingers wrapped around them so easily - and held them away from the still-healing cavities that had once been eyes.

He hadn't thought further than bringing Sands back to the monastery and keeping him until the American was recovered enough to survive. He'd grown used to the other's presence, though, like a shadow with an acerbic tongue, grown used to the lithe form pressed against him in bed. He'd missed sleeping with someone. He'd missed touching.

Even so, wanting Sands had come as a surprise.

Wanting to keep Sands was a greater surprise.

Finding some way of keeping him was what troubled El most now.

Sands had healed, slowly, and adapted to his blindness with the absolute will of a survivor. El thought that soon Sands would grow restless. He would go back to the United States or to Mexico City and pick up his web of plots and manipulations and murder. He would leave the blue guitar behind. He wouldn't sing.

He wouldn't smile that smile that had amazed El the first time he saw it; amazed him with its sweetness, amazed him with its innocence.

Instinct and rattlesnake reflexes had always served El, had kept him breathing, but that hadn't been enough to save anyone else. His cursed luck had never extended to the people he cared for, not Domino, not his brother, not Carolina or their daughter. Instinct didn't tell him how to hold onto anything now.

He found himself watching Sands, admiring not just the lean and shattered grace of him, but the feral soul and too-clever mind. Sands had that same almost untouchable luck; luck that didn't render him immune to hurt, only insured he was left when everything else was gone.

The American was his match in ruthlessness and his opposite in his capacity for cruelty. El couldn't stop watching him, trying to understand him.

Sands would cock his head, face turning toward El as though he still saw, somehow sensing the weight of El's gaze on him. His brows would arch into an expression of wordless question and El would find himself groping for words or an excuse for his preoccupation.

The weeks passed, though, and Sands, though he complained waspishly about the town and Mexico and El, showed no signs of leaving. He stayed in El's bed, burned in his arms, and quietly, steadily fit himself into the empty hollows of El's life.

Sands seemed almost at peace, something El wouldn't have predicted. El still kept a wary eye on the American, though, aware that a current of violence ran through Sands' veins with his blood. They both went armed and ready for trouble. In El's experience, and apparently Sands' too, trouble always came, sooner or later. They were both content to wait for it where they were, though.

_ **Plata y Plomo** _

Ramirez had contacts in Culiacan, people who were happy to tell him things now that the shadow of the Barillo cartel no longer hovered over the city. People who, though no one ever mentioned it, knew he'd played a part in the events of _El Día de los Muertos_. When the reporter started asking questions, some of these people made sure Ramirez heard about it, so he was ready when she knocked on his door.

No one told him she was pretty. Short, a little wider than the current American idea of perfection, but curvy, dressed in blue jeans, a loose white shirt over a turquoise colored tank-top, and confident enough in herself she didn't resort to high heels to add to her height and instead wore a pair of comfortable huaraches. A leather bag was looped over her shoulder.

He raised his eyebrows.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

She smiled at him, a smile that reached her brown eyes.

"My name's Grace Reyes," she said, extending her hand to shake his. "I'm a reporter and I'm putting a story together on the coup d'etat attempt last November. Some people have said that you might be able to tell me about what happened."

Ramirez took her hand and shook it, but shook his head. "I'm afraid there's nothing I can tell you."

She frowned. "But you were here, in Culiacan, on All Souls' Day."

Ramirez shrugged and stepped outside, closing his door behind him. He didn't invite her inside. She sniffed but didn't say anything. Ramirez looked at her silently. She tucked a strand of black hair behind her ear.

"No one who knows - really knows - anything wants to talk to me," she complained softly.

"Many people died that day," Ramirez told her.

"And the world should know why," she insisted. Her jaw set and Ramirez decided she was about a decade older than he'd first thought. Early forties, but she carried the years well.

He just shook his head.

"Okay, maybe you're just too American to get it," she snapped, "but what happened that day is incredibly important. The people stood up and refused to let the military take over. They defied the drug cartels. This was a grass-roots, textbook example of the true power of the people. It's what democracy means - "

Ramirez began to laugh.

"_Señorita_, it was a textbook example of what guns and money can buy you," he said. She was staring at him, perplexed. "The only thing it was about was greed and revenge."

"Tell me why," she demanded.

"No. Better that the ones that survived are left alone." He made a cutting motion. "It's over."

She walked down his porch, to where Ramirez had a row of terracotta pots filled with flowers. She drifted one finger through the petals. "The stories about that day are already becoming folk legends, _Señor_ Ramirez. I think you know part of the real truth and I don't understand why you wouldn't want everyone to know."

He brushed past her, plucked a red blossom, and tucked it into the jet black hair behind her ear. "Maybe I'm not proud of how I acted that day, Ms. Reyes."

Her hand lifted to the blossom but didn't remove it.

"There's a boy who sells chewing gum - "

"There are a hundred boys who sell chewing gum or keychains or bootleg CDs," Ramirez interrupted. There was only one boy who would have a tale to tell of the Day of the Dead, though. He remembered him clearly, standing over his bike, wearing a yellow T-shirt, confused dark eyes moving from Ramirez to Sands' bleeding face and back. In a hundred years, Ramirez might make himself forget he'd walked away from a dying man with no more than a bad joke on his lips, but he would never forget that child's eyes.

They hadn't understood and then they had. He'd walked away with a dog and left a man to die. That boy's silence had condemned Ramirez more thoroughly than Sands' fierce refusal to ask for help. Sands didn't believe anyone was good. The boy didn't think _Ramirez _was.

Reyes twiddled with the flower stem.

"He told me a story about a blind man who faced off with the cartel," she said. "It was unbelievable, really. The Blind Pistolero is one of the stories growing up here, but this kid, he had details that the others don't. Enough to make me think there's something the stories are based on." She looked at Ramirez steadily. "He told me that the American _federale_ was there that day, that he saw _El Hombre Sin Ojos._"

Ramirez flinched. That was a part of the story that couldn't be true. It couldn't. Even Sands couldn't have got as far as he had if he'd been blinded. And if he had?

_The blood ran down his face like tears … _

"I saw too much that day," he said finally.

"Have you heard the story? The one the boy tells?"

Ramirez shook his head. "I don't want to."

"You should."

He waited as Reyes recited the story from the beginning, ending with, _"That is where El Mariachi found El Hombre Sin Ojos, weeping tears of blood over the Most Beautiful Woman. And because El Mariachi knew that the Most Beautiful Woman would have killed him too, he took El Hombre Sin Ojos away with him, back into the west, where they could both forget." _

_The blood ran down his face like tears … _

She looked at him expectantly afterward. He blew out a long breath. "It's a fairytale,_ señorita_."

"I think there's some truth in it. I think the little yellow bird is the boy I met and the Most Beautiful Woman is an AFN agent who was found shot dead in the central plaza."

"You can think whatever you want," Ramirez said. He glanced at his watch. "I have to go. I have an appointment, so if you'll excuse me?" He gestured to the steps down from the porch.

Reyes sent him a dirty look and gave in, leaving his porch and, Ramirez hoped, his life. She looked back when he came down the steps after her, her jaw set. "I'm not giving up."

"Good luck."

~*~

Ramirez' day only got better. First the reporter arrived at his doorstep, now two FBI agents wanted to have 'lunch' with him. All of them coming to him, wanting answers to questions he didn't want to think about. He wondered who would be next, someone from one of the Mexican federal agencies, another CIA officer, or maybe even an ambitious member of the new cartel that had taken over after Barillo's death, greedy for the Colombian bounty still offered for the head of El Mariachi? All he wanted was to live quietly. He was retired. But that wouldn't make them leave him alone.

Sands, damn his weaselly black guts, had drawn Ramirez into the bloody arena of Mexican history with his devil's bargain, offering revenge in one hand and justice in the other. All it cost him was his peace.

It was the same restaurant that he'd met Sands at, Ramirez realized when he arrived. That amused him in a dark fashion, enough so he managed not to snarl when he saw who the FBI had sent to talk with him.

The woman was a stranger to him, dressed in a no-nonsense pantsuit, shoulder length brown hair pulled back in a short pony-tail, dark-eyed, Caucasian, attractive if she hadn't had her face set in a severe frown. Ramirez had never met her. The man, a stocky gringo in his late forties, was dressed in a dark-blue, Western-style suit, complete to the turquoise-and-silver belt buckle and a bolo-tie.

"Mr. Ramirez," the female agent said, walking up to the table and stopping ahead of her companion. She extended her hand to shake. "I'm Agent Holliday. This is Agent - "

Ramirez looked past her and sneered.

"Bethel. I know."

"Of course, you do, Jorge," Bethel agreed, grinning at him like they were old buddies. "We worked some cases together back in San Antonio."

Holliday's lips thinned. Maybe she thought they were going to start telling old war stories. The only stories Ramirez had about Special Agent Arnie Bethel involved watching your back for the knife the corrupt sonovabitch was likely to stick in.

Ramirez took her hand - it was warm and slightly damp with perspiration - and shook it. "What is it you want, Agent Holliday?" he asked. He ignored Bethel.

"Information, pal," Bethel said. He sat down opposite Ramirez uninvited.

Ramirez glared. "Try the phone company."

Bethel gave him a shit-eating grin. "Well, you see they aren't retired FBI agents who were right here for the Day of the Dead coup."

Ramirez sipped his wine, then waved to Holliday to take one of the other chairs. "Attempted coup," he corrected.

"I guess you'd know about that, hunh?"

Ramirez ignored that. Bethel snapped his fingers at a waitress. "Hey, babe, get me a beer and my partner here - " he almost leered at Holliday, " - a bottled water, 'kay?"

"Ignore the Neanderthal, Mr. Ramirez," Holliday said.

"I always tried," he said.

She almost smiled.

"We aren't here about the coup attempt," Holliday said. "We're trying to run down the last of the Barillo cartel's connections in the States. Everyone knows Barillo himself died during the coup, but no one is completely clear on how or why or who among his people survived. Considering your past, we thought you probably took an interest in what happened."

The waitress arrived with Bethel's beer and a bottle of water for Holliday. Holliday thanked her in stiff, but correct Spanish. Bethel ignored her, immediately taking a long draw on the beer. Ramirez took the time to consider how much he wanted to admit knowing about the Day of the Dead.

"I'm retired," he pointed out.

"Oh, come on, pal, you can't tell me you didn't come down here to keep an eye on old Armando, after what he did to your buddy Archuleta back in San Antone," Bethel said.

Ramirez shrugged. "This is Mexico. I knew he was here. He couldn't be touched, though." He stared at Bethel, letting a message leak through his eyes. "He wasn't the only one responsible for what happened to Tom. - Did the Bureau ever find that leak?"

Bethel grimaced. "You still spouting that shit, Ramirez? Archuleta blew his cover. No one else."

"So you say."

Holliday looked back and forth between them, picking up the hostility with ease. She tapped one long, clear-painted, manicured finger against the pink linen table cloth.

"Could we return to the point, gentlemen?" she said.

Ramirez sipped his wine and smiled coldly at Bethel. He knew the agent had been corrupt back then; he knew the piggy-eyed bastard was still dirty. Only his master would have changed. He'd never been able to prove Bethel had been behind blowing Archuleta's cover, though.

"What do you want to know?"

"Who died, who took over, who's running things now," she ticked off.

"Barillo, Guevara," - he leveled a meaningful look at Bethel, who flinched, - "Ajedrez, Billy Chambers, and a truckload of rent-a-thugs are dead," Ramirez recited. "Along with General Marquez, one of El Presidente's advisers, many members of the military loyal to El Presidente, even more of Marquez' men, and several hundred civilians."

Holliday drew a sleek, leather bound notebook from her bag and began writing in it. Her brows drew together. "I'm not familiar with Guevara or … Ajedrez?"

"Dr. Guevara was Barillo's torturer." Ramirez smiled, remembering his bullet killing the man. Something about that smile, paired with that statement, obviously disturbed the two FBI agents. He sipped his wine. "Agent Bethel probably knows who he was."

Bethel's small, pale eyes locked on him, but the FBI agent didn't speak. Ramirez raised his brows.

"No? According to the CIA, Guevara was responsible for keeping my partner drugged and alive for two weeks, while Barillo had him tortured and interrogated, before they killed him."

Bethel jerked and spilled beer on his pants. Ramirez nodded to himself. Sands hadn't lied about Guevara. The crazy sonovabitch was probably dead by now, but in his own strange way, he'd done more good than harm on the Day of the Dead. Ramirez knew he'd been set up to take out Barillo and the doctor and he hadn't liked it - still didn't - but Sands hadn't forced him. He often wondered what had happened to the CIA man, who had disappeared by the time Ramirez' conscience forced him back to offer the wounded man his help. Nothing had been left but ugly bloodstains on the orange wall and the sidewalk.

"Who told you that?" Bethel demanded. "Why the hell are you talking with the CIA, anyway?"

Ramirez smiled sourly. "It doesn't matter now. They're all dead." Sands, too, he thought again, almost sorrowful. Manipulative and amoral though he had been, Sands hadn't ever sold out. Ramirez had asked some quiet questions of old contacts after _El Día de los Muertos_ and there were plenty of stories about the CIA officer. Sands had been a near legend in the closed community of American intelligence, but he'd disappeared completely in the aftermath of the coup d'etat. Some stories said the man was dead, others that he was living on a Caribbean island off of a fortune stolen from the drug cartels. None of them had a real clue and Ramirez hadn't bothered to tell anyone anything. No one needed to know the truth - that part of it he knew.

Let Sands become a spooks' legend, let the man become another myth, like El Mariachi, or the new one told since the Day of the Dead, the one that reporter had heard, El Hombre Sin Ojos.

Holliday gave her partner a disgusted look and then wrote down what Ramirez had told her. He waited until her pen was still before going on.

"Ajedrez was an agent of the Mexican AFN," he said next. She'd still been wearing the uniform when she was shot down in the plaza before the ayundamiento. Billy Chambers had told Ramirez who she really was, though, before taking Ramirez inside to confront Barillo. "She was also Armando Barillo's daughter. "

Holliday's pen jerked. She looked up. "Barillo had a daughter?"

Ramirez nodded.

"So who's left, pal?" Bethel asked, somewhat recovered. "Who's running the cartel down here now?"

Ramirez shrugged. "Like I said, I'm retired. The only name I've heard is Esteban Bautista, but I don't keep up. Barillo's organization fell apart, operations moved further south, towards Quintana Roo and Chiapas. No one's left here in Sinaloa. I don't know who is left in the States. I don't live there anymore."

Bethel sneered. "And you don't care, because you're a _Mexican_ again."

He set down enough money to pay for his meal and the agents' drinks, pushed his chair back, and stood.

"I don't have anything else to tell you."

Holliday frowned thoughtfully, but stayed silent. Bethel gave him a hard look.

"Yeah, I bet."

Ramirez paused and looked at Bethel, at the expensive suit, the short-cut hair and broad, sunburned face. He thought about warning Holliday about the man, but what would be the use? He'd never had a shred of proof. Bethel was clever. Holliday might be just as dirty, anyway. He shrugged and started to walk away.

"So long, Bethel. Better watch your back. Don't forget, this is Mexico."

"Hey, Ramirez," Bethel called, just loud enough Ramirez would hear and no one else. "I heard you were the one who got Barillo."

"No, that was El Mariachi," Ramirez said. He nodded at them, a small smile curling around his mouth, and walked out onto the street.

~*~

The waitress was nervous. She knew the distinguished, older hidalgo at the table was powerful and wealthy. His attitude of absolute confidence, more even than his fine suit and manicured hands, told the story. If she displeased him, a word in the manager's ear and she would have no job. But Esteban Bautista didn't worry her as much as the _rene_ sitting with him.

She wasn't pretty or important enough to interest a man like Bautista. The black man sitting at the veranda table with him was different. He _saw_ her. It made her sweat and fumble with the drinks she'd brought them. The lazy smile on his gleaming dark face made her think he knew that, too.

"Is there anything else I may get for you, _señors?_" the waitress asked. She set the glass of red wine carefully before _Señor_ Bautista, then placed the vodka before the other man. She stayed on Bautista's side of the table, almost bending over his shoulder, close enough to enjoy his expensive after-shave and notice the silver just touching his hair at the temples.

Bautista waved her away. She left gratefully, but stayed alert.

"So," Bautista said to his lunch companion. "Matters progress. The unrest in the north has focused attention there. This is good."

His companion flashed white teeth. "Yeah, that was pretty slick. Too bad my old buddy got himself caught in the cross-fire." He seemed to savor his words. "His backup was just too late. Damn shame when wires get crossed like that."

Bautista sipped his wine. "Unfortunate for him," he commented. His eyebrows rose. "But fortunate for you, _Señor _Heller, and your agency, _sí?_"

Heller laughed loudly. "Hell, yes, _Señor _Bautista."

"You and your superiors have provided valuable help north of the border. Profits have improved in response to moving into the market Barillo left. Of course, the Colombians are animals, but the _coca_ pays even better than the _chinaloa_." He rubbed his forefinger and thumb together. "I am suitably grateful."

"It's only going to get better once we assume control of the oil reserves in Chiapas," Heller said.

Bautista raised his wine glass. "To our mutual enterprise,_ Señor _Heller, and its eventual success."

Heller picked up his vodka and tapped it against the wine glass.

"To winning."

Bautista looked up and smiled at the woman approaching with them. Her hands were full of shopping bags. The apple-green silk skirt of her dress swung with her strides.

He stood to greet her, as did Heller. She kissed his cheek. She smiled at Heller and allowed Bautista to seat her beside him. She was a striking woman, dark-haired and darker-eyed, somewhere in her late thirties, and a gold wedding band gleamed on one long finger. It matched the one on Bautista's hand.

_"Señora_ Bautista," Heller said.

_"Señor_ Heller." Her voice was frosty.

"We were talking business, I'm afraid," Bautista said to his wife. She kept smiling, but gave him a dark look. "Where is Blanca?"

His wife grimaced. "Your_ gringa_ is still shopping."

"She is your bodyguard, Maria Teresa," Bautista corrected her.

Maria Teresa laughed, then picked up her husband's wine and took a sip. "Is that what you call it?"

Bautista flared his nostrils. Maria Teresa caught his hand in hers and smiled. "Do not ask me to pretend I do not see, and I will offer no objections. Keep your _rubia_. I understand, you know."

Bautista sat back in his chair. "I forget how smart you are sometimes."

She shrugged, unconcerned.

The cell phone sitting beside Heller's place setting shrilled. After a quick look to Bautista, he picked it up and answered.

_"Bueno."_

Heller pursed his lips as he listened to the caller.

"Relax, Arnie, take a chill pill. If Ramirez hasn't done anything by now, he won't."

The whites of his eyes flashed as he rolled them, miming impatience to Bautista and his wife. He sank down lower in his chair and sighed.

Maria Teresa waved the waitress over and ordered a glass of white wine. The girl went sickly green and hurried away as Heller spoke up again.

"Arnie, Arnie, Arnie, so what if Ramirez was agenting for the Company? You think any of our guys would blab that we got a Fibbie knocked off?"

Heller laughed.

"So what did he tell you and your pretty partner? - Have you got in her pants yet? She looks like she'd be a real nice piece."

Maria Teresa grimaced. She plucked a flower out of the table centerpiece and began rolling the stem between her long fingers.

Heller went on, "Wait. What? I thought the asshole was dead? Are you telling me Ramirez says different?" He sat up straighter. His voice hardened. "The Colombians still have a bounty out on the Mariachi. Plenty of cartels would pay for his head, if you could find it. Wait a sec."

Without ending the call, Heller looked at Bautista and said, "You know El Mariachi? The bastard that just about put the Barillo cartel out of business? He's the one that fucked up the hit on El Presidente. My little Fed might have a line on him."

Something cruel and dark gleamed in Bautista's eyes. "I know about El Mariachi. The man is an interfering fool."

"Oh, we agree on that," Heller said.

"It would be wise to remove such a man from the board," Bautista added. "Chucho would enjoy the job."

Heller grinned and said into the phone, "Okay, Arnie, you find out where this fucking mariachi is and the problem will be taken care of permanently. Ramirez and Sands, if he's still breathing, too."

He closed the phone and set on the table again. "Chucho needs to head up to Culiacan and check out some reporter chick that's snooping around. Reyes. My guy says she's been talking to Ramirez. She might have got more from him than the Fibbies did."

Bautista smiled. "Chucho will take care of it."

"Gotta love a guy that gets off on his work the way Chucho does," Heller agreed.

"You can leave him in Culiacan as far as I'm concerned," Maria Teresa commented. "I do not like the way he looks at the girls at the estate." She shuddered delicately. "His lips are always wet."

Bautista patted her hand.

"Chucho wouldn't dare touch any of our staff … without permission." He looked up and caught the waitress' eye again. "Shall we order?"

~*~

Rachel Holliday knocked on the door of her partner's hotel room, guessing he wouldn't answer. She sneered. Arnie Bethel was a cretin. He was probably out, 'buried balls deep', as he'd so charmingly put it, in some Mexican prostitute.

She hoped he caught the clap. She hoped the hooker rolled him for everything in his obscenely tacky, gold money-clip. She hoped the poor woman, whoever she was, didn't catch anything from Bethel.

At least if Bethel was off screwing, he wasn't wrecking another case.

She knocked again. No answer. With a shrug, she left. Her so-called partner had done an outstanding job of alienating Ramirez at lunch the other day. She wanted to take another crack at the ex-agent. He obviously knew more than he'd told them. Maybe without Bethel shooting his mouth off, she could get the man to open up a little.

Today seemed like a good day to try, since her personal albatross was missing.

She must have fucked up bad in a previous life, not to mention pissing off her superiors in the Bureau, to get stuck with Arnie Bethel as a partner _and_ sent down to this backwater country on assignment. Thank God for Pepto-Bismol. When she got back to the States, she was never, ever leaving again.

~*~

The door opened a crack and a dark eye observed Holliday's departure. With a salacious grin, the owner of the eye turned back to the room's other occupant, pulling it closed behind him.

_"That is one fine piece of ass, ese."_

"I ain't your homeboy, asshole," Bethel grumbled. He slitted his eyes against the painful morning glare coming through the cheap hotel room's blue curtains. "And speak English instead of that greaser talk."

"Whatever you say."

Bethel rolled his eyes. He was still in his boxers and an undershirt. He scratched absently at his chest, where the graying hair curled out from beneath the shirt, and sprawled back on his bed. The Bautistas' enforcer had shown up at his door unannounced and unwanted not long before Holliday had come knocking.

His head still ached from the bottle he'd put away after talking to Heller on the phone, and his guts were gurgling. His mouth tasted like a skunk took a dump in it and then died.

"So you're Chucho."

His visitor strolled over to the room's only chair and tipped Bethel's clothes off, then sat down astride it. He wore sharp-toed, handmade leather shoes that reflected the light as he tapped them restlessly. The collar of his royal blue suit came to sharp points and his shirt was a dark red silk, with the collar unbuttoned and open to mid-chest. A heavy, gold-link bracelet wrapped around one wrist. The man never stopped moving, humming with a freakish and unhealthy energy. Probably running on pure crystal-meth and all the coke he could snort, Bethel thought.

"So, you tell me about this reporter chick, okay?"

Bethel groped around on the carpet by the bed and found his booze. There was enough in the bottom to give him a swallow.

"Bitch has been snooping around. Wants to write some fucking ex-poh-zee on the last round of shoot-me-shoot-you the beanheads held here. Thinks she's going to track down some pissant 'hero of the people' everyone says popped that general," Bethel said.

"El Mariachi."

Bethel snorted.

"Fucking fairytale."

"He is real, he is a gunfighter, a killer. The best in Mexico." White teeth flashed in the tanned, rat-sharp face. "When I kill him, everyone will know I am the best."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Bethel replied, waving a hand. If the money wasn't so good, he wouldn't have anything to do with any of the goddamn spics. He needed to get this wetback asshole out of his room so he could go take a piss. He didn't like anyone waiting on him anymore when he did, because it took him too long these days, the way it burned. Shit, and he knew what that meant, too.

"Is she pretty?"

Bethel grinned at him. "Getting long in the tooth, but good enough, if you like your sugar light brown."

Chucho's black eyes gleamed. "Pretty ones are best." He had a high-cheekboned, almost delicate face adorned with a pencil-thin black mustache that made him look both boyish and vicious. The expression on it made Bethel shudder. When men like Chucho got through with someone, they weren't pretty anymore.

If they were lucky, they weren't alive, either.

Not that Bethel fucking cared. Reporters were just another kind of whore and whatever happened to the beaner bitch would be no skin off his ass. Not like Tom Archuleta, who had been a fellow federal agent. He'd guessed what Barillo would do when he burned Tommy Boy's cover and it hadn't been easy. The money had been sweet enough to help him forget though, and it got easier after that.

These days all Arnie Bethel really worried about was getting good info for his paymaster and avoiding people like Jorge Ramirez, who looked at him like they knew what he did, even if they didn't have the evidence.

"So will she lead me to El Mariachi?"

"Hell if I know."

"And Ramirez?"

"He didn't tell us. Maybe he told her. She's been noseying around town a couple of weeks. Got a kid trailing around, telling her everyone to talk to," Bethel reported.

Chucho licked his reddened lips.

"I'll start with him. Who is he?"

"Some brat that sells gum to tourists. Pablo. Pablo Santiago." He swiped his wallet off the nightstand and rummaged through it. It yielded a piece of dingy paper with the address for the Santiago family and the hotel and room number for Grace Reyes. Bethel lumbered off the bed and handed it Chucho, then headed for the bathroom, scratching his ass.

"There ya go, pal. Have fun."

Chucho laughed and got up. "I will, _ese_. I always do."

~*~

It was cruelty that saved him.

Pablo stopped his bike to offer a tourist some gum and the man shoved him into the gutter. He fell into his bike, smashing the handle bars into the pavement. His wrist hit the basket and the gum he peddled went flying into the street. A car ran over it while he struggled to his feet.

One look showed him the fat tourist walking away without a backward glance. Another showed him the loss of his paltry goods. Pablo caught his breath, wanting to cry because it hurt where he'd fallen, because his Papi would be unhappy that he had no money to show for the gum, because he'd thought everything would be different after the cartel was broken. But nothing had changed for him. He was still one more mouth than his family could afford to feed. Still the third son, the one his papi yelled at and his mama hugged in the mornings.

He checked his bike once he had it upright again, afraid it would be bent. Everything was all right, though, until he began pedaling toward home.

The bell was silent.

Pablo stopped and wiggled it. Nothing. The tongue was gone.

Wistfully, he looked back to where he'd been pushed over, but couldn't find the little piece that gave his bike bell its voice. Maybe it had fallen out in the street like his gum.

He rubbed the knee that was sore from hitting the sidewalk and headed home. Without the bell, he was aware of the sound of the tires on the shifting surfaces beneath them, of asphalt or cobblestones or dry, dusty earth as he approached his house.

The taste of metal flooded his mouth when he saw the big, shining trucks parked carelessly before the little, whitewashed house, half on the yellowing bit of yard, half in the street. Two men were leaning against the red one, their sunglasses flashing white reflections as they spoke, their dark suit coats pulled that little bit too tight over the bulge of a shoulder-holster. Pablo knew these men, or men just like them; they were cartelistas and until the Day of the Dead, they had ruled in Culiacan.

Where there were two, there were always more. He looked at his house and swallowed hard. They would be inside, with papi and mama and his brothers.

The Santiagos were poor, but his mama had always insisted they stay away from the cartels. The things they did were dirty and the men who ran them evil, she insisted. Pablo knew there could be no good reason for cartel men to have come to his home.

Quietly, he backed the bike into the shadows of a wall and then around the corner into an alley. His hand went to the bike bell to muffle it, then he remembered. The bell was broken. If it hadn't been, the two men waiting outside his home would have heard him.

Somehow, Pablo knew that would have been bad. Survival instinct told him he couldn't let them see him.

He desperately wished his blind American was with him. Somehow, he knew El Hombre Sin Ojos would know what to do. He would have a gun, even though he'd told Pablo they were very bad, just like mama said. Mama said shooting people was bad too, but the American had wanted Pablo to shoot the man following him that day. Pablo thought that if the cartel came to your house, maybe mama was wrong, maybe like his American, you needed a gun.

Pablo didn't even have a rock.

He propped his bike against the wall and ran down the alley to the path that led to the back of his house. There were tall plants growing all along the wall in the yard. He slipped into the yard and crawled toward the back door, hiding under the plants the way he did when he was very small.

Dry dirt and little, sharp rocks ground into his knees and palms. Pablo didn't notice. He was careful to stay quiet, afraid someone would hear him breathing, but no one could hear anything over the sobbing coming from inside the house.

It was his mama. She was crying and screaming and begging someone to stop. Pablo had to bite his lip and dig his nails into his palms to keep from running inside and yelling at the gunmen to stop hurting her.

He scrambled up to the wall of the house and under a window that looked out of the kitchen. When his mama screamed again, he had to look.

There were four men in the kitchen with his family. One of them was just leaning against a wall, smoking a cigarette. The biggest one was kicking something. Pablo looked again and felt his stomach try to turn inside out.

The man was kicking his Papi.

His Papi was on the floor. Pablo had seen people die. He knew what it looked like. He remembered the men his American had shot on the Day of the Dead and the way they had just fallen down and been still. His papi looked the same as those men had. He just sort of thumped and shifted and fell back with each kick.

Papi was dead. Pablo's eyes blurred with hot tears. Mama was still crying too.

Two of the cartel men were holding her arms behind her, with her hands pushed up behind her shoulder blades. Pablo could tell it hurt, but that wasn't why she was crying. She was shaking her head, trying not to look at papi and his brother.

Juan was tied in a kitchen chair. His pants were pulled up but not fastened and dark blood stained all down his legs and his crotch and dripped on to the brown tile under his bare feet. He wasn't moving. Without the ropes holding him to the chair, he would have fallen out of it.

Pablo whimpered and prayed he wouldn't pee himself.

_"Por Díos, por favor, please, please, please don't,"_ his mama cried. _"Please don't hurt him anymore. Please stop."_

The man standing behind Juan jerked his head up by the hair. A bandanna was stuffed in his mouth. It was all wet and dark with spit and blood. Juan's eyes were open, but they were dull and empty and didn't see anything or even blink.

_"Tell me where the other kid is and maybe I won't do this to him, too,"_ the man said. He let go of Juan's hair, pulled a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and wiped his fingers. Then he walked over to Mama and grabbed her chin, lifting her face. _"You don't start talking now, chica, and I'll have Oso over there - "_ he nodded at the big man, _" - ream him out with that big .45 he carries."_

Mama whimpered and nodded.

_"Bueno."_

He let go of her chin and stepped back, a smile on his face. Pablo stared at him, memorizing his face. Pablo wanted to remember him. This one was the one in charge. This one was the one who had killed Papi and Juan. He was a bad man and some day Pablo would be like El Hombre Sin Ojos and shoot him.

_"Now, tell me where little Pablito is."_

_"Señor, he is at school,"_ Mama said. Her voice shook as she lied.

The man nodded and gestured to the one with the cigarette. _"Vicente. Take Manolo, find out where the fucking school is, and go get the kid."_

_"Okay, Chucho."_

_"And don't fart around all day!"_ Chucho yelled.

Vicente nodded and left, followed by Manolo. Oso kept hold of Pablo's mama. Chucho smiled at Mama. There was something wrong, something bad about that smile, and it made Pablo feel sick and scared too.

Chucho ran his fingers over Mama's lips, then down her throat and inside her blouse. Then with a jerk, he tore the blouse off. Pablo closed his eyes.

Mama screamed and he had to look again. Chucho had his hand on his mama's breast and was hurting her again, squeezing and twisting his hand.

_"Now, mamacita, why don't you tell me what you know about El Mariachi?_" Chucho said.

_"I don't know anything, please, it's only stories,"_ she sobbed.

Chucho leaned closer to her. She tried to back away, but Oso had a tight hold on her. Chucho put his face next her breasts and rubbed his cheek against her. _"Ah, mamacita, you smell good._" He looked lifted his eyes and looked at her through his eyelashes, grinning. _"Tell me a story."_

Mama kept crying even as she told Chucho the story everyone in Culiacan had heard.

_"They say a gringo found out that General Marquez and the Barillos meant to kill the President,"_ she said shakily. Her face was slick with tears. One eye was swelling shut from a blow earlier. _"He found El Mariachi and told him. On the Day of the Dead, El Mariachi came to Culiacan with his friends and the gringo. The gringo fought the Barillos and the other mariachis, they fought for the people in the streets, while El Mariachi saved the President. Please, Díos, please, don't - ." _

She whimpered when Chucho put his mouth on her then went on. _ "Pablo, my son, he saw the gringo fight in the street. He said the Barillistas put the gringo's eyes out."_

Chucho began shaking, laughing against her breast. _"Caray, what a joke. No blind man can fight."_

Pablo bit his lip in anger, remembering his American, the way he'd walked forward with the blood running down his face. Chucho didn't know. He wished El Hombre Sin Ojos was here now. He would make Chucho stop touching his mother. He would shoot Chucho.

_"But it's a good story,"_ Chucho giggled. He straightened up and began licking Mama's face. Oso's face was expressionless as he held her still, staring over her head at the wall. _ "Now tell me about the other mariachis, El Mariachi's friends."_

Mama closed her eyes.

_"My sister's cousin was here on the Day of the Dead. He lives in Cancún. He saw them that day. He swears they're in Cancún now. He said their names were Lorenzo and Fideo. They perform at some club for the tourists there." _

_"Well, well, well,"_ Chucho murmured. _"Do you think your little Pablo will tell me the same story?" _

_"Sí."_

He plastered himself against her body and began rocking against her. _"Then I guess I don't need you anymore, do I?"_ he muttered. His arm moved, Pablo couldn't see how, and Mama threw her head back and screamed.

Chucho stepped back and the knife in his hand slid out of Mama's belly in a gush of red blood. Mama's scream faded out into a small gurgle. The blood poured out of her stomach and splattered onto the tiles. Pablo clutched at the crumbling wood of the window sill and stared. Everything in his nine year old body screamed at him to run to her, to try and help her, but a still little voice in his head whispered in a voice like his American's that he couldn't _do_ anything. Chucho and Oso would kill him. And he was so scared, so scared he couldn't even breathe.

Mama's legs sagged and her head fell down like Juan's. Oso let her fall to the floor.

Chucho ran his finger along the flat of his blade, then lifted the finger to his mouth and sucked the blood off. He grinned at Oso. _"Go wait outside. I want to do her while she's still warm. As soon as Vicente gets back with the kid, we finish up here and go after that reporter woman and the Ramirez guy."_

Oso grimaced and left.

Pablo back away from the window silently, almost blind with tears, and then ran.

  


~*~

  


The weeping, hysterical child wrapped around her was so different from the happy Pablo Grace had first met on arriving in Culiacan that she didn't know what to do. She'd been on her way out of the hotel when he ran up. The glimpse she'd got before the boy threw himself into her arms had shown her he was scratched and dirty, face blotched and pale, eyes red and swollen with tears. His body was trembling against her now.

She hugged him tight and rocked him, wondering if she shouldn't get him inside and back into her hotel room. People were looking at them.

"What is it, Pablo, what's happened?" she asked as he finally seemed to calm down a little.

_"Mama and Papi, they-they-they killed them,"_ Pablo gasped out, not looking up. His whole body was shaking.

Grace wanted to shake too. Killed them? It couldn't be true, could it? She looked around wildly. Culiacan was so beautiful, so colorful and filled with sunshine and brilliant flowers, but she knew it had a dark side. This was a city that had been owned by the drug cartels for years. Murder here had been a daily occurrence.

But who would kill the Santiagos? They were too poor to matter to the cartels.

She pushed Pablo away enough to look in his eyes. "Who?"

_"Cartel,_" he choked out. His eyes were dark and glistening, eyelashes wet and spiked. He looked up at her, full of desperation. _"They want to find El Mariachi."_

Grace pulled him over into a corner of the lobby where they weren't so obvious. "Pablo, how do you know this? Are you sure?" she asked.

He nodded solemnly.

_"Señorita, I saw them. I saw them through the window,"_ he said in a small voice. _"I saw."_ He started crying again and Grace folded him close in his arms, wondering what she could do now. The police needed to be called. That would be the same here or in the States, wouldn't it? Oh, god, this little boy had just seen his parents murdered, she realized. He'd already seen so much in his young life, but this was so much worse. She was no good at this, she didn't know how to help someone hurting this way.

She held onto Pablo until the boy pulled away from her. He squared his thin shoulders under the ripped T-shirt. _"Señorita, I heard them talking. The one called Chucho said they would find you next."_

Grace caught her breath.

"Me?"

Pablo nodded, wiping at his face and leaving dirty streaks through the tear tracks.

_"Sí, señorita. You and the federale."_ He looked at her solemnly. _"They killed Papi and Juan and Chucho took off Mama's shirt and touched her. He hurt her. He used a knife."_

Grace clenched her hands in the fabric of her skirt, wanting to scream. She looked around, afraid she would see someone watching them, someone coming toward them with guns or bloody knives. She'd been so set on discovering the truth behind the stories, the darkness behind the bright legends, she'd never once thought it might reach out and pull her into the shadows. No wonder no one wanted to talk to her.

Hysteria threatened for a brief moment. According to Pablo, _someone_ wanted to talk to her.

Pablo tugged at her wrist. _"Señorita, we have to hide. They will come here._"

She stared and then nodded. A nine year old boy had more sense than she did. "We'll go to Mr. Ramirez," she said, taking his hand. The ex-FBI agent would know what to do, who to call, how to keep Pablo safe.

She hoped so, anyway.

  


~*~

  


Ramirez was watering his flowers and ignoring Rachel Holliday when the green taxi pulled up in front of his house. He paused, the watering can in one hand, and watched as the reporter exited the back-seat, followed by a boy.

The boy.

Ramirez sucked in a breath. He didn't like this. He didn't like seeing the boy from the Day of the Dead, nor the way the kid was skinned up and dirty and tear-stained. He didn't like the jerky way Reyes was moving, the way she grabbed a handful of money from her purse and shoved it at the bespectacled taxi driver, the way that driver burnt rubber as he pulled away from the curb. He didn't like it, because everything about it spelled trouble.

Reyes slung her purse strap over her shoulder, grabbed the boy's hand and practically ran up the walk to the porch.

Automatically, Ramirez scanned up and down the street, looking for the SUVs the cartel favored. The street was empty, though, still and bleached out in the afternoon glare. The smell of wet dirt and green things in the pots on the shaded porch thickened the seared air pressing down around him. The only thing moving was the drift of off-white dust in the wake of the disappearing taxi. The only sound was the fading noise of its engine and a dog barking in the distance.

Behind him, Holliday shifted restlessly, sensing Ramirez' tension.

Reyes led the boy onto the porch and stopped with him in front of her, her hands protectively on his shoulders. She looked once at Holliday but then focused on Ramirez.

"Ms. Reyes," he said politely. He set the watering can down next to a flower pot.

She gulped and her eyes flickered toward the still empty street.

"This is Pablo," she said.

Pablo. The kid had a name.

"Some people came to his house today," Reyes said in a tight voice. The words came fast. "They were looking for him. They killed his family."

Holliday gasped. The boy flinched.

"How do you know this?" Ramirez asked, even though it wasn't anything that hadn't happened in Mexico - especially Culiacan - many times before. The kid - Pablo - was biting his lip.

"I saw them, Señor," he whispered. His voice cracked. "I saw them do it. I heard what they were saying."

"Come inside," Ramirez said.

Reyes looked at him gratefully. "Thank you."

He led them past his small front parlor to the kitchen, pulled open the refrigerator and took out a bottle of Coke, which he opened and handed to the kid. Pablo just held the sweating bottle. His eyes were glazed. That told Ramirez how bad it must have been.

"Tell me why you came here instead of going to the police," he said to Reyes.

Holliday took up a position near the kitchen door. She'd unbuttoned her jacket. Reyes' eyes flickered to her again, her mouth forming a question. _Who?_ Then her lips firmed and her attention switched back to the boy.

Pablo, Ramirez corrected himself.

"Ms. Reyes?" Holliday prompted matter-of-factly.

"Who are you?"

"Special Agent Rachel Holliday, Federal Bureau of Investigation."

Reyes laughed, a sharp sound, the sound of someone faced with some intolerable irony.

Pablo rubbed his fingers over the rippled glass of the Coke bottle and started talking. "I looked in the kitchen window, _señor_. My Papi and my brother … They were dead. One of the men was called Chucho. He wanted to know how to find El Mariachi. He wanted to find me. He made my Mama tell him, but she lied. He killed her."

"Sonovabitch," Holliday muttered.

"I heard him say to the others that after they found me they would find _Señorita_ Reyes and you, _Señor_," Pablo whispered.

Reyes said, "When he told me, I thought you would know better than me what to do. I thought you'd want to know." She pushed a strand of hair off her temple. Her hands were shaking. "Do you know who this Chucho is?"

"No," Ramirez answered. He stood up. "We have to leave. If the cartels have gone after you and the boy, they'll be frustrated. They'll come here next."

He headed for the bedroom. He had a bag there. He'd grab it and they'd leave. Now. He'd never kept where he lived secret. If the cartels were hunting El Mariachi again and thought he might know something, they'd come right here.

Sonovabitch. He couldn't even blame this on Sands. It had probably been Reyes, with her questions, or the dynamic duo of Holliday and Bethel showing up - Fucking Bethel. It had probably been the dirty agent that sold him out to the drug runners. Bethel had done it before, to Tom Archuleta.

Holliday was trailing after him. "You have to call the local authorities, Ramirez."

He slammed his closet open and pulled out the duffle he kept there, then threw it on the bed. "I have to live long enough to do that. So does that kid and the stupid reporter," he snapped. He went to his dresser and pulled open the top drawer. His old revolver and a box of shells were there. He spilled a handful of shells into his palm and shoved them in his pants pockets. The rest of the box went in the duffle.

The growl of a big engine rumbled through the quiet house, braking to a stop on the front street.

"Shit," Ramirez exclaimed. He rushed out of the bedroom. A glance down the hall showed him Reyes and the boy hovering in the kitchen doorway. A tremor ran through Pablo. He knew what was coming.

"What - " Reyes started to ask.

"Get him back between the wall and the refrigerator," Ramirez snapped at her. "Stay down."

Holliday pulled her service revolver. She looked at Ramirez and tipped her head toward the front room and the windows. He nodded. "Go left."

He disengaged the safety on his own weapon and sidled along the wall until he reached window and could peer out.

Two SUVs were idling in park on the street. One big man was already out of a vehicle. Ramirez counted three others.

"I count four," he told Holliday.

She nodded, a gloss of light sliding down her smooth dark hair. Her expression was set into a controlled, professional mask.

Ramirez didn't twitch the curtain aside. That kind of movement drew the eye. He just put his eye to the gap along the edge again. The other three were out of the vehicles now. All of them dressed in the Mexican version of cocaine chic, no ties, black sunglasses, dark suits to cover up the shoulder holsters. One of them was a monolithic man, built like a pro wrestler, suit coat strained across his shoulders, shaven head shining in the sun, with a bushy black Fidel Castro beard. A broad grin flashed through the hair and he drew a massive, chrome-finished .45 out from under his coat.

The first boom of the .45 blew the front door open, swinging it on its hinges until it hit the wall and rebounded. Ramirez cursed under his breath. It hadn't been locked.

He flattened himself against the wall and doubled checked that the safety was off on his revolver. Holliday waited across the room. He hoped like hell he could count on her. Four against two was bad, four against one would be worse, but if it was five … the kid, the reporter and Ramirez were all screwed once and for all.

Footsteps on the porch. Ramirez blinked hard, trying to readjust his eyes to the dimness in the house after staring out into the afternoon light. Two of the goons walked straight into the living room. They were both armed with submachine guns and started spraying down the room. Bullets gouged deep pockmarks in rows across the plastered walls.

Ramirez took a step forward to settle into his shooting stance, leveled the .38 at the closest man's back and fired without hesitation. He had no problems with shooting the man in the back, either. So he told himself. Not when all he had was a six-shot revolver against a MAC11. The rattle of the submachine guns almost masked the .38's report. The second man started to turn, glimpsing Ramirez in the corner of his eye, but never had time to re-aim the submachine gun. Ramirez fired two bullets into him.

Holliday fired at the third man as he started through the door, startling a yell from him. Holliday kept firing toward the door.

The big man's .45 boomed again and again, tearing holes right through the walls. Ramirez and Holliday both ducked. Ramirez dropped to his knees and scrambled over to the closest body. He pulled the submachine gun from the dead man's hand, aimed it out his door, and emptied the clip. The .45 fired again and heavy footsteps beat away from the porch. A moment later one of the SUVs roared to life and away.

"That's it," Ramirez muttered.

Holliday ducked her head around the window and looked. "That's all of them."

Ramirez stayed on his knees, pulling air into his lungs through his nose, letting the adrenaline drain out of his suddenly aching muscles. He was too old for this. He was retired, damn it. His hands still wanted to shake and he threw the emptied submachine gun away with a clatter.

Holliday was kneeling by the door. Checking the pulse of the man she'd shot. He saw her grimace and pull back her hand. Then she was calmly looting the corpse's pockets for clips to reload the gun she took off it. Ramirez shook his head and got to his feet. Just like every female agent he'd ever worked with, when the sugar turned to shit, they got the job done with a pragmatism that put most men to shame.

Part of him couldn't believe they'd just survived a small firefight with four cartel gunmen. The rest of him knew it would never have happened if the gunmen hadn't been overconfident or Pablo and Reyes hadn't arrived to warn him.

Ramirez swung around and headed into the kitchen to make sure they were both still all right.

He found Reyes right where he'd told her to go, the kid flattened to the wall behind her, a determined expression on her face and one of his kitchen knives in her hand.

Holliday followed him into the kitchen a minute later, setting the submachine gun on his table with clunk.

"Is it over?" Reyes asked.

He plucked the knife from her fingers and tossed it in the kitchen sink. The sound of metal hitting porcelain made them all flinch.

"It's never over, _señorita,_" Ramirez said tiredly. His voice sounded distant to him; his ears were still ringing. "Not until you're dead."

~*~

Ramirez tiredly rubbed the back of his neck and looked around the wreckage of his home. It was a small house, but he'd lived in it for almost seven years. It had been a quiet place, until Grace Reyes showed up chasing legends. Even Sands hadn't come into his house.

He blinked and thought: coming to his house would have been too personal for Sands. The man had been in love with his cell phones. They let him whisper in everybody's ears and still keep them at a distance. So much of Sands had just been an act meant to distract anyone from seeing inside him. He didn't like thinking about Sands, because he still wasn't sure whether he hated the Agent or felt grateful, but he knew he felt guilty for walking away from him on the Day of the Dead.

Grace Reyes had stirred all that up, too, with her questions.

Now, his little refuge was shot to shit. Quite literally. The rain of gunfire had hit something in the plumbing and a sewer stench wafted from the bathroom.

Three dead cartel men in the living room. Blood pooled on the tile floor and stained the rugs, stuffing burst from holes shot in the furniture, and broken glass scattered over it all. The survivor of their little firefight had made it to one of the SUVs and sped away. Ramirez knew that one would be back, with more men, better armed, soon.

He glanced at the reporter. Reyes had her arms wrapped and the little boy. Pablo, he reminded himself again. He wondered how she'd found the kid.

He wondered what Pablo knew about Sands or if he'd just been there by chance.

Whatever had happened to Sands, it couldn't have been good. He told himself Sands must have called his own agency for help, used the phone Ramirez had tossed him, but recognized his own rationalization. He didn't know.

He realized he was thinking about Sands and the Day of the Dead to keep from thinking about what had just happened.

Holliday was tying her hair back in a neat ponytail. A spatter of blood marred her cheek. Her service weapon was back in its holster at the small of her back, but the submachine gun she'd lifted off one of the dead men lay on the kitchen table close to hand. Her lips were pressed together and she was scowling fiercely.

"I cannot believe I was just in a cartel shoot-out," she muttered. "The paperwork is going to be murder."

"Do us a favor and don't mention it," Ramirez said. "Go home. Pretend you never saw us, never were here."

"I have to make a report," Holliday said.

Ramirez lifted his shoulders. He was too tired to argue with her. She hadn't been in Mexico long enough for the righteousness and American certainty to wear away.

"Whatever."

Reyes held the boy with his face against her, stroking her hand over his shaking shoulders. Black hair hung in a tangled mess over her face. She looked shell-shocked. "I don't understand," she said softly. "Why did they come after us?"

"The cartels have a bounty out on El Mariachi. Any hint of a way to find him and they'll go after it. When you started nosing around, someone heard and thought they'd found a lead," Ramirez explained.

"But why kill - ?" Her hand stroked over the boy's head. He guessed she meant the boy's family.

"Because they were in the way, or didn't know anything useful, or just to teach everyone else a lesson."

"And now?" Holliday asked, arching an eyebrow.

Ramirez nodded.

"They'll be back; they will want revenge for the men they lost here. That's why we have to go."

Reyes pressed her eyes closed. "We should call the police."

Ramirez laughed sourly. "This is Mexico. The cartels own half the police force."

"So what will you do?" Holliday asked.

"Hide," Ramirez said. He walked into his bedroom, picked up the dufflebag and headed for the door. Part of him had been expecting this since _El Día de Los Meurtos_. Before that. He'd packed his case the day he came to Culiacan. He couldn't blame Sands entirely. The CIA agent had only been the catalyst; he hadn't blackmailed Ramirez into going after Barillo. He would have done it, sooner or later, he realized now.

Carrying the duffle in one hand, he walked back into the kitchen and took Reyes' elbow. "Let's go." She came along, still in a numb daze, and the boy came with her.

At the door, Ramirez looked back at Holliday.

"You do whatever you think you have to," he said. "But the cartel is after this kid. I'm going to get him somewhere safe and disappear."

"You're going to walk out of crime scene without making a report and … and just run?" Holliday exclaimed. "What about the police?"

_"Sí,"_ he said. "This isn't the States, Holliday. Too many of the police here are owned by the cartels. The ones that aren't are helpless and frightened. Silver or lead is the only choice any of them have here."

She shook her head.

"What the hell happens to people down here?"

Ramirez made a sour face. "Go back while you can," he advised. "You don't belong here."

He pushed Reyes and the boy out the door and followed, letting it slam with a hollow echo behind him. Holliday was left alone, frowning at the house full of bodies.

~*~

Chucho was simmering with rage. The _puta_ had lied and since he'd already killed her, he couldn't make her feel it as he kicked her body over and over.

He whirled and stabbed his finger at Oso.

"Fucking useless _cabrón! _ You can't find some bitch when you got the fucking hotel room number, you can't find some tittysucking kid, and you let some two-bit asswipe ex-Fed chase you away with your tail between your legs!"

"Chucho - "

"Shut up," Chucho hissed.

Oso shut up.

Chucho paced manically back and forth across the kitchen of the Santiago house. He paid no attention to the sticky, dried brown puddles of blood under his shoes. He was frowning. Absently, he ran the blade of the knife in his hand over his own finger tips, drawing stripes of his own blood on the pads.

With a cry, he stopped and threw the knife. Oso flinched as the blade sank into the wall next to his head and quivered.

"Take the others and go back to the Fed's house. Search it. Find out where he'd go. Kill him if he still there," Chucho said.

Oso nodded, then asked,_ "Where will you be?"_

"Cancún," Chucho said. "I'm in the mood to look up some mariachis, listen to a little music, find out where an old friend of theirs is."

He brushed up next to Oso and jerked the knife out of the wall. Oso swayed away from him. Chucho was almost two feet shorter than the big Mexican and built slightly, but he was fast and poisonous as a snake. Oso was scared of him.

_"They won't tell you where El Mariachi is,_" Oso said carefully.

"He'll come running when I starting fucking them up."

Oso chuckled.

Chucho laughed with him for a minute, then stopped abruptly. "Get out. Go back to Chiapas when you're done. I'll call you at the bar."

**Bring Your Guitars**

The padre brought the message from the cantina mid-morning, just before the real heat of the day began pressing down. El refused to have a phone at the monastery. Sands had found he didn't care. He thought El still had the cell phone he'd given him, but no one except Sands had ever known the number for it. So anyone - though Sands had no idea who that would be - who wanted El, called the Café Azul and left a message for him.

They were sitting at the padre's booth. El had found him a place that let the sun shine on his legs, but left his face in the shade, something Sands liked. El was stringing a new guitar. Sands had, despite declaring he wasn't about to help, picked up another one and begun tuning it.

He tuned all the guitars now, since complaining bitterly that the off-notes were pure torture. Most of Sands' complaints were for show, but not that. He couldn't stand listening to an untuned guitar.

He was also considering whether it would be worth the outcry and general mariachi pissiness if he shot someone the next time a busload of tourists rolled through town. Which would be in about an hour, he thought.

"Just one," he muttered. "And only if it's a really annoying voice."

"What are you muttering?" El asked suspiciously.

"Oh, nothing, really," Sands replied too quickly. He smiled and tried to look innocent. From El's snort, he knew he hadn't succeeded, but he'd never done innocent particularly well even with people who hadn't known him. While El, well, El knew Sands better than anyone, even his mother (a good thing she didn't, since that included knowing him in the carnal, Biblical sense too), ever did.

Ducking his head, Sands started playing _Sympathy for the Devil_, ignoring El's comment. "You would like that song."

"Dickhead. It's a classic," Sands replied. He really had no excuse for being so cheery in the middle of the morning, trapped in this ass-end excuse for a town in the middle of Mexico nowhere, no job, no hope, no money, no fucking eyes. No reason except El had fucked his brains out again the night before and again as the sun rose - the warmth of it had crawled rosy-fingered over his bared skin from the east facing window - and Sands was still wrung out, sated, and insanely pleased.

He kept playing and even managed to pretend to ignore the tourists that wandered through the square later- for a while - though El had to peel his hand off the neck of the guitar he was holding at one point - _"You're going to snap it." - "Just pretending it's that woman's neck."_ El didn't comment further.

Another flock arrived in front of the booth.

_'Oh, look, a mariachi! - Oh, look, he must be blind. - I didn't know Mexicans were so pale. - I wonder if he plays requests. - He probably doesn't even speak English, Elizabeth, none of these taco wackers do.' _

Sands didn't look up from the guitar in his arms. His brows arched and he muttered to El, "Taco wackers? Gee, The, doesn't that just warm the cockles of your heart, the deep and abiding respect for another culture folks bring with them when they visit good ole Mejico?"

_"You're the gringo, what do you think?"_

"Oh, excuse me, do you speak English? Um, habla Ingles?"

"Yeah, we habla, you twit," Sands snapped. "Now, we were having a private conversation, so could you just go fuck off?"

"Well, really, there's no need to be rude - "

"You think that's rude?" Sands said. In a flat tone he explained, "Rude would be me grabbing your hubby-bubby there, reaching down his throat, pulling out his greasy intestines and using them to strangle him for calling my buddy here a 'taco wacker', Elizabeth."

Several gasps were followed by the rush of feet carrying the tourists away. Sands smiled in satisfaction.

El commented, "I don't need you to defend me."

"Don't deny me these little bits of enjoyment, El."

El strummed a chord on the guitar he'd been working on. Sands cocked his head. Only five strings.

"Honestly, you don't want me to shoot people, you don't want me to threaten your merry Mexican compadres, and now you don't want me to even insult my own delightful countrymen?"

_"Sí."_

"I hate you."

Just to needle the mariachi, Sands began playing again, deliberately plinking the notes in a way meant to drive any musician crazy. El went on with his work, adding the last string to the guitar and slowly tightening it. The tuning peg squeaked faintly and the string creaked as it was drawn taut.

At which point, the padre returned and El apologized to him because Sands had chased away his customers. As if. That lot wasn't about to buy anything, they just wanted someone to perform like a monkey for them. He'd have done Mexico and the US a favor if he had offed them all. What were a few fat tourists from Milwaukee, anyway?

"Marcos received a call for you," the padre told El.

Sands idly strummed the guitar, listening. Information was always useful. He'd already learned that Marcos was the bartender/manager of Café Azul, the dingy cantina at the far end of the square, where the food was two notches above edible, the tequila was adequate, and the air smelled of shadows, sawdust, lime, and lard.

"A compadre of yours is in need."

The priest spoke quietly, but Sands had always had sharp ears - the better to hear you with, my dear - and he had nothing to distract him from what he heard now. Sometimes the world seemed so newly loud he wanted to turn the volume down. He bent forward over the sweet curves of the guitar and played very softly, listening. The shade had moved and the late morning sun burned the crown of his head, heated the frets under his fingertips and the denim over his legs. He tasted dust and smelled a mixture of lacquer, beer, and chilis swirling through the square, along with the fading diesel stench of the tourist bus' exhaust.

"Who?" El asked. Sands heard him put the newly strung guitar aside.

"Marcos said to tell you it was someone called Fideo," the padre explained. Sands imagined his head was bent close to El's. An old man from the sound of his voice, seamed and cracked and full of a lifetime's patience. "He left a number for you to call … a number in the Yucatán."

Sands raised his eyebrows and winced, feeling the scar tissue on his eyelids pull. There were other habits he needed to break himself of. Trying to roll his eyes, for one, since he didn't fucking have any - and it hurt in a distant, not quite painful way.

"I will call him," El promised. "Soon."

Sands ran his hand across all six strings, listening closely to the instrument, and allowed himself a little smile. Perfectly tuned.

He held out the guitar, assuming one of them, padre or El, would take it. "Here. - I feel the need for a tequila and lime."

El took the guitar and then his hand was on Sands' shoulder. It might look like he was trying to guide him, but El knew very well Sands didn't need or want any damn help.

"Very well, my friend."

Sands really hated how much he liked hearing El call him that. They were fucking. They weren't buddies. He didn't want a goddamn friend. Friends called up and wanted help in the middle of the night and then split when they'd got what they wanted. Where had any friends been when he was stationed to Mexico? Where were any friends when he had his fucking eyes gouged out? It hadn't been anyone from the CIA or even his own country that helped him, just a gum-selling kid and a murderous mariachi. He wasn't about to forget that.

They made it to the cantina without encountering any tourists, at least. Sands blatantly followed El to the bar and stood next to him as he asked Marco for the phone.

Marco brought over a glass of tequila and a quartered lime, setting them in front of Sands with the smallest ring of glass on the bar-top.

"Your friend says to call Fideo at this number," Marcos told El. Soft scuff sound of a piece of paper pushed across the bar and El's fingers closing on it. Sands grimaced into his tequila. Whatever was written there, no matter how well he listened, he could never read again.

Damn it, he'd liked reading. Biographies, histories, science fiction, pulp westerns, he'd liked reading them all. Well, there were always books on tape, he consoled himself. He'd have to learn braille too.

Being blind was just an utter pain.

The phone was an old fashioned one with a dial. The sound of it was a zinging trip into his childhood, dipping his fingers into the holes over the numbers, the feel of smooth black plastic, pulling the dial around and releasing it … Sands shook his head, frustrated. He couldn't deduce the numbers from the sound, not the way he could from the ring tones of a touch-tone phone.

There's nothing to stare at when you're blind. Just darkness that makes you think, because there's no way to distract yourself from what's in your head. Sands despised whiney self-introspection. He turned his face toward El, making no pretense of not listening.

"Fideo?"

If he concentrated - and Sands could concentrate very well, thank you - he could just make out most of the other side of the phone call.

_"El. It's a mess. Lorenzo found a girl. Anna. Now she's gone."_

"What do you mean, gone?" El asked.

_"There's cartel here. Bautista. One of their men showed up. He took her." _

"Who is he?"

Sands shivered at the low, dangerous tone to El's voice. At the same time, he grinned. He tossed back the tequila and started plotting. He didn't know enough about the Bautista Cartel, but he knew who to contact to find out what he didn't.

_"He calls himself Chucho. He wants the bounty on you."_

"What's Lorenzo doing?"

_"Going fucking crazy. Are you coming?"_

_"Sí."_

_"Soon?"_

Sands reached over and wrapped his hand around El's forearm. "We have to go to Mexico City first. Two days," he said. El's arm tensed under his hand. Sands tightened his fingers.

"Where are you?" El asked.

_"Ciudad Cancún. The Hotel Quintana Roo."_

"Soon." El pulled his arm away from Sands' grip. "Lock Lorenzo in a room and tell him I'm bringing my guitar."

El set the phone receiver down. Sands immediately told him, "You're bringing me too."

"Why Mexico City?"

"Information on the Bautista cartel. I have a contact there, someone who owes me," Sands said swiftly.

"How do you know about the cartel?" El asked suspiciously.

Sands held up on finger. "A. Mexico was my beat. Knowing was part of my job." He added a second finger. "B. I just heard your little friend Fideo mention them."

"You want to come with me," El said.

"I _am_ going with you, mister," Sands told him. "If you try to leave without me, I'll shoot you myself and save the cartels the trouble."

El snorted.

"Let's go."

Sands focused on the sound of El's steps and skittered after him. He heard the whispers of the other people in the cantina and smiled to himself. He knew it bothered everyone that watched, that a blind man could move so fast and never run into anything.

"So we're going?"

"We need to pack."

"Yeah, what?" he asked.

El's answer floated back to him as they crossed the square.

"Ammo."

~*~

He decided to make the call from the car, barreling down the road south, sitting next to El. He had the cell phone he'd handed over to El, along with the blow-up of Marquez, back before the Day of the Dead. Just remembering El's expression while Sands had expounded on balance and _peurco pibil_ made him grin.

It had been such bullshit.

He'd thought _El_ was a ridiculous, sulking bundle of self-pity until the mariachi remarked in a disbelieving voice, _"You want me to shoot the cook?_" Sands had barely kept from laughing.

He turned the cell phone over in his hands. Smooth, light plastic, wires, chips, batteries. Every agent's mandatory accessory in a high-tech world, always in his pocket or sitting at the table or desk in front of him. It would be a surprise if it still worked. If it didn't, they'd have to find some place with a phone along the way. He hadn't even contemplated contacting anyone from the phone at Café Azul. He didn't want a trace on him leading back to Villa Perdidos.

Sands grimaced to himself. He'd gone soft. If Guitar Town got too hot for him, he'd just pack up and leave. He'd never been attached to a place. He still wasn't, damn it. It was El he'd have to pry loose from the place and he wasn't sure he could do it.

Just thinking about it made his head throb. Another headache. He hoped it wouldn't be a real bitch. He'd had a couple of those lately, bad enough he just wanted to shoot himself to make it stop. He set the cell on the seat and rubbed at his temples.

This wasn't the time to feel sorry for himself. He fumbled for the phone again, punching in a number that he remembered easily - resolutely refusing to flashback to leaning against that hot wall in Culiacan when he'd realized there was no one to call.

Hah. It still worked. And if the damned phone did, so would he.

"Hello, Quin."

_"Sands?_" Quin had never lost the slight Anglo-Irish accent, even after almost twenty years of foreign postings. The shock in his voice made Sands smile.

"The one and only."

_"Too bad. Someone told me you were dead. I had a drink."_

"Aw, I'm touched. Tequila and lime?"

_"Saké. - I'm disappointed."_

He laughed. "Quin, my friend, remember that teeny little problem you had with the smoke back in Chiang Rai?" he said. "The one I helped you kick?"

Quin was silent for a beat. _"I remember I thought I was in hell."_

"Yeah, so do I. Listen, I need some information, it's really not a big deal, nothing your bosses will care about, not like Chiang Rai, and I thought, you know who owes me big time?"

_"Bloody hell. Right then, I suppose it's get you what you want or a transcript of my detox shows up in London?" _

"Quid pro quo, amigo, that's all. No one rides for free."

_"I'm not even going to ask why you're coming to me."_

"Swell. Why don't we meet for lunch day after tomorrow - I'll be in Mexico City by then. I'll call."

_"Am I going to get anything out of this?"_

"Not a blessed thing, my friend," Sands told him and ended the call.

He took a deep breath. Nothing had changed. He didn't need his eyes to pull the strings. He wouldn't think about how he'd broken out in a sweat. This was his game and he could still play it with the best. No question. Sheldon Jeffrey Sands still had it.

He still had a nauseating headache, too. He dropped the cell again and slumped down with his head against the door-window. The lockpost dug into his cheek. He twisted his face to the side. He needed air before his stomach decided to turn inside out all over the dashboard. It was just the movement of the car. One of the tires must be low, it had a hell of a shimmy going. He wasn't going to throw up. He wasn't.

He found the window crank and frantically wound it down, turning his face into the rushing air, breathing in and out, until things settled.

"What time is it?" he asked suddenly. The air didn't feel like daylight air. It was moister. Not much cooler, even though it was rushing into his face at a good seventy miles an hour, but he tasted the difference. Felt it. Something. "Is it dark?"

"Sands?"

He swallowed hard.

"Everything's cool, my friend," he assured El.

"It's late," El said. "Ten twenty-three." A pause. "It's dark."

Sands faced him across the seat, even though he couldn't see anything. "Oh."

"Are you tired?"

He shook his head. "I'm not even the one driving, El. I'm fine."

El reached over and caught his arm. Sands let him pull him over the bench seat, sliding across the worn leather upholstery. He dropped his head against El's shoulder. Much better than the car door, he decided. A little wriggling and he'd got himself comfortable.

The darkness and the motion didn't seem so disturbing while in contact with El. The vertigo receded. Sands began to relax.

El's muscles shifted beneath his cheek as he reached forward to the dash. A second later the radio came on. It was a Tex-Mex station from along the border, playing an eclectic mix of Mexican pop and country rock.

Los Lobos.

"Okay?" El asked.

"Peachy," Sands said. He felt the old car pick up further speed. "Try not to kill us when that fucking tire blows out, okay?"

~*~

Siesta time and the city was almost quiet, somnolent in the hot sun, still in the shadows.

Quin knew before he arrived that Sands would already be at the rendezvous.

He sat down at the table opposite Sands. Even in the dark cantina, Sands had a pair of over-sized black sunglasses on. He was paler and thinner than Quin remembered. Still an arrogant prick, though, sitting there with his back to the door. At the bar, a big man quietly fingered a tune on a guitar, stopping to drink now and then. Other than the guitar player, Sands, and the bartender, the cantina seemed empty.

"You need to lay off the cologne, Quin," he said. "I could smell you coming from the door." A tequila and lime sat before him, but no dish of food.

"No _peurco pibil_?" Quin asked.

"No," Sands said with a funny little twist to his mouth. "It doesn't taste the same." He tipped his head, listening to the guitar player, who was rather good. "You know, if he plays _Malagueña_, I may have to shoot him."

Almost as though he'd been listening, the guitar player began playing_ Malagueña_. A muscle twitched in Sands' cheek and Quin braced himself. Sands might turn around and put a bullet between the musician's eyes; he'd done as much before. He could only hope the crazy bastard waited until their meeting was over and Quin was gone. The guitar player sped up, thumped his guitar to add percussion, and added a flourish to the end of each chord. The notes cascaded from his fingers faster and faster, then slowed into an almost melancholy air.

Sands surprised him by laughing and tossing back his tequila. "Prick." He carefully lifted the tequila bottle and poured another shot. The moves were so slow and studied, Quin wondered how much the man had already had.

He cocked his head at Quin.

"Well, gee, Quin, you must have some questions, since I called you out of the so-to-speak blue. I know you were probably overjoyed to realize I was alive and all, but by now you must be asking yourself what I want."

Quin slumped back in his seat.

"All right," he said. "What do you want? Why the hell aren't you dead?"

Sands leaned forward and smiled. "You know, I'm glad you asked that, Quin. Because it's simple. I am dead. I want you to remember that, first of all. It's very important that if anyone asks you, you tell them that poor Agent Sands is in a better place these days."

"And will anyone be asking?"

Sands steepled his black-gloved hands before him. "That is a question, isn't it?"

Quin waited.

Sands shrugged. "I need you to tell me everything about the Bautista cartel. Who works for them, what they're up to, where they have their headquarters. The whole enchilada." His fingers drummed against the table in exact rhythm with the guitar.

"Good lord, playing games with Barillo and the military wasn't enough for you, Sands?"

"Golly, Quin, I didn't know you cared," Sands said. His voice had gone flat and his face expressionless. All the playfulness had disappeared. His hand stilled.

"I don't. I think you're insane."

"You're right." Sands gave him that thin-lipped smile that sent a shiver up Quin's spine. "So, get me what I want. I'll call you, you'll give me the information, and we'll be all squared away. Balanced."

"Sure." Quin didn't like it when Sands used words like balance. It usually preceded some complicated plan or a murder. Both, actually.

"Cross my heart and hope to die." The false brightness drained out of Sands' voice before he finished. He waved his hand toward the doorway behind him. "Now, fuck off."

Quin got up, shaking his head. "You're still a jerk. Fuck with the Bautistas and I won't have to lie about you being dead. They'll hand you your ass on a platter. They're _cartel -_ ."

He reached into his jacket and became aware of the big guitar player standing next to him. Simmering dark eyes measured him. The guitar was sitting on the bar and the guitar player had a automatic in his hand. It pointed at him unwaveringly. Loose dark hair framed the man's sullen face. He shook his head slowly, made a mocking clickclickclick with his tongue.

"What are you about to do, hey?"

Sands didn't look up, but he sighed with exaggerated exasperation.

The guitar player said, "If he is anything like you - "

"What did I tell you, El?" Sands said peevishly. He waved one black gloved hand, then snapped the fingers. "Oh, that's right,_ to stay out of sight and let me handle this._ For fuck's sake, this is what I do for a living - "

"I am not so trusting as you," the guitar player said. "And I do not like endangering one friend to help another."

Sands lifted both hands in the air and muttered, "Oh, my Christ. He's British Intelligence, El, he isn't going to shoot me in the middle of a public place. "

"I would," El declared.

"You are perfectly happy to hold a shoot-out in a church," Sands said. Fond approval colored his words. "Maniac."

The guitar player chuckled rustily. "You wouldn't?"

"Hey, psychopath here, remember?"

Quin was surprised to see a real smile flicker across Sands' face. A wild flash of humor lit the guitar-player's face, too. With a magician's flicker of fingers, the gun disappeared up the man's sleeve.

"How could I forget," the guitar player murmured. "Introduce us."

"El, Quin. Quin, you should feel honored, you're in the presence of El Mariachi, guitar-slinging, gun-toting, cartel-killing, genuine Mexican vigilante legend." Sands paused and added, "Annoying, stubborn shitwit."

"Loco gringo," El Mariachi replied, unperturbed.

There were stories about the man with a guitar case full of guns, a man with no name, rumors that the man had killed Armando Barillo and General Marquez on the Day of the Dead, but Quin had thought they were only that: stories. Then again, there were stories about Sands, and he'd seen enough of the rogue CIA agent to know _those_ weren't just stories.

What was unbelievable was El Mariachi and Sands working together. They should have been enemies. They seemed like a match made in hell.

He stared into the Mexican's heated eyes and carefully pulled out the cell phone he'd been reaching for. Without shifting his eyes, he set it on the table and skated it toward Sands. "Here. I'll call you when I have the files."

Sands closed his hand on the phone. "I might have a small problem with that," he said. "Unless you can get me copies in braille."

"What?"

Sands stood up too. He faced Quin, lifted his hand to his sunglasses and slid them off. Quin jolted and bit back a curse. Bone pale scar tissue was all that was left of Sands' once dark eyes. Several thin, ragged scars marked his eyelids, fading to white, yet testifying to the ordeal that had left Sands blind.

"Blind as a bat," Sands said into Quin's shocked silence. He arched his brows. "Makes reading files a real pain, you can imagine." He slid the black sunglasses back on and smiled. "Don't worry about it, Quin. El can read them to me. "

"What the hell happened to you?" Quin whispered.

"Just one of those things," Sands quipped. "I was sleeping with my contact in the AFN and it turned out she was Barillo's daughter. They drilled out my eyeballs on _El Día de los Muertos_." A skull-faced grin accompanied his light words.

Quin gaped.

"Ajedrez was the last thing I ever saw. At least she was beautiful." Sands frowned and added, "Well, really, the last thing I saw was that fucking drill."

"How the hell can you joke - how can you want anything to do with another cartel after that?" Quin demanded.

Sands shrugged. "Should I cry?"

"They are dead. He is not," El said, startling Quin.

"Besides, I didn't say I was going to take on the Bautista cartel. I just want to know about them," Sands said. "So just do this and we're quits."

Quin looked at the Mariachi, then at the blind man. "If it means I never have to hear from you again … you've got a deal."

"Whatever," Sands muttered. He pulled a telescoping cane out of his jacket, snapped it out to full length and headed for the door. El hesitated only long enough to retrieve the guitar on the bar and followed.

Quin slumped down into a chair and poured himself a shot of tequila. When he set it down, he realized Sands had stuck him with the tab. With a shrug, he toasted both men who had left. He'd get Sands the information and then he'd put in for a transfer again. No matter what, he had some vacation time coming, and with that hellish duo on the prowl, he was going to take it.

Sands had always trailed chaos behind him like the wake of a tornado and El Mariachi was still infamous for the massacres he left behind. The two of them together would tear Mexico apart.

Of course, it would be interesting when he told Sands the CIA was in bed with Bautista.

~*~

El took Sands' wrist in his hand and tugged him along the sidewalk toward their destination. Automatically, Sands balked.

"Where are we going?" he asked suspiciously.

"We have an appointment."

Sands tried to jerk his hand loose.

"Funny, El, I don't remember making any appointments except with Quin," Sands said. "I think I'd remember something like that, seeing as we just got into Mexico City last night and I haven't been near a phone since we left your little Mexican Mayberry."

"Sands - "

"Come on, _Señor_ My-Name-Is-An-Article, explain to me this appointment we have, because my name ain't Tonto," Sands said.

El just waited.

"Oh, my Christ," Sands muttered. "Tonto? As in the Lone Ranger and …?" El thought if the man could have rolled his eyes, he would have. Instead, his free hand moved in a gesture eloquent of exasperation.

"Just tell me."

El tugged the American toward a doorway, out of the foot traffic passing along the sidewalk. He leaned one shoulder against the chipped, teal painted stucco of a wall. Sands faced him, strings of long, dark hair falling over his oil-black sunglasses. El realised, startled, that there were strands like dulled gold and bronze sun-streaked through the black. He pictured Sands back in their village, a shadow curled around a pale guitar, pale hands questing over the neck, plucking out slow melodies, tuning it with a perfectionist's ear, searing sun burning over his bent head. He had to resist the urge to brush the hair away from Sands' face, to feel for the bone-deep heat caught in the darkness.

"I'm waiting," Sands said in a sing-song voice and crossed his arms over his white shirt. El had tried to convince him that wearing all black in the Mexican heat was madness, but his only concession had been replacing his black shirts with tacky T-shirts or the plain white. He had donned a black jacket over it, to hide the double shoulder holster and his guns. He'd even drawn on the black gloves he'd had on when El found him in Culiacan.

"You have an appointment with an expert, a specialist, a man the doctor in our village knows."

"That is just a waste of time," Sands immediately objected. "My eyes are history. - Now, why don't we go back to the hotel?"

"Afterward," El said.

"Explain to me why I should let some greasy quack stick his fingers in my eyeholes when there is nothing, nada, _zilch_ that anyone can do about the fact that _I have no eyes_, you dickplucking egomaniac," Sands demanded in a furious monotone. Black leather covered fingers were drumming a tense rhythm against his own elbow. In a moment, they would be resting on the butt of one of his guns.

El caught Sands' hand and drew it away. Sands let him, a surprising allowance in public. Even when they were alone, he sometimes rejected any touch he hadn't anticipated. El had no idea if it was the American's insistence on more personal space than others needed or a result of being blinded. It didn't matter, he'd learned to just wait; if he waited until Sands adjusted, Sands would slowly relax. If he didn't shove the muzzle of one of his guns up under El's chin. It paid to stay still then, too.

"But maybe he will help with the headaches, _sí,_" El said quietly.

Sands head jerked back and his lips pressed together in a thin line. "I'm fine, it's nothing I can't handle," he hissed. "Really, having your eyes gouged out can be a headache, but that's all."

Curled in a corner like a wounded animal hiding and waiting to die, only the fast harsh breaths of pain giving him away when El came searching, wasn't handling anything. Sands might not even remember the way he shook, but El did. The headaches had hit Sands twice during their time at the village and that was once more than El wanted to ever endure again. He had wrapped his arms around Sands' too thin body and held on to keep the man from clawing at his still healing eye sockets, and crooned wordless lullabies even as Sands whimpered for death. He wouldn't take Sands' guns away - he knew Sands could find a hundred other ways to kill himself if he wanted - but he didn't want to walk into the monastery one day and find it painted with blood because the pain had finally overwhelmed the man's will to live.

"Doctor Mendoza is an expert ocularist," El told him. "There are implants that - " he frowned and tried to remember what the doctor in the village had explained, " - support the - "

"What's left," Sands supplied drily, ever so softly. His mood had shifted like quicksilver, anger draining into something miserable and shut down.

_"Sí."_

Sands suddenly looked drawn and vulnerable. His shoulders hunched and he turned his face away, the dark tumble of hair masking his expression. "I knew you'd get sick of it."

"Sick?" El questioned.

A gesture toward his face communicated that Sands meant his mutilation.

"The only good thing about having no eyes - I don't have to see what I look like now," he breathed bitterly.

El shifted so that his back shielded Sands from the eyes of anyone passing. He braced one hand high on the wall over Sands' shoulder. With the other, the scarred one he wore the leather gauntlet on, he traced his fingers over Sands' sharp-cut cheekbone and along the edge of his sunglasses.

"My hands do not lie," he murmured, leaning so close his breath drifted over Sands' beautiful mouth. He smelled of sandalwood and smoke, cloves, and burnt almond poison. El cupped Sands' jaw in his palm. "I will always want you as you are."

Sands laughed and tried to twist away. "What, blind and bugshit crazy? Listen, if I could see again, I would go right back to what I did before. Maybe you want me this way so I'm not a danger to your precious, cuntwhore country."

"You will always be dangerous," El stated.

Sands jerked. He drew in a harsh breath through his nose. Then that wicked, knowing smile curled his lips, and he said, "You bet your bippy, friend. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know."

"So do this."

"It'll take dough, lots of dough," Sands pointed out. "We're on a schedule, if you've lost track, and your little guitar-playing buddies are waiting for you to get down to Cancún and do a cancan on some cartel ass."

"It is only the first appointment," El said reasonably. He tugged Sands away from the wall and down the sidewalk. Sands followed, only a tiny frown of concentration betraying the effort it took to move so fluidly through the crowds without sight.

"You might be surprised to learn this, El, but I _have _been listening to the doctor, as well as thinking about what losing my pretty peepers means. The kind of stuff you're talking about is going to cost. The CIA has fanfuckingtastic medical insurance, but that does diddly for your's truly while they think I'm dead," Sands pointed out.

El smiled and assured him silkily, "We have money."

Sands cocked his head. "From _El Día de los Muertos_."

_"Sí_, Lorenzo and Fideo gave me a third of the cartel pay-off."

"Oh, that hurts." Sands tapped over his heart. "That hurts, right here, El. I had plans for that dough."

El chuckled.

"We will be late if you do not hurry." He smiled because Sands made him feel alive again. Wary and off-balance often, but that wasn't a bad thing, either. "If you are good and don't shoot the doctor, you can tell me what plans you had."

"I don't know, El," Sands said as they reached the clinic doors. "I might have to shoot him on principle. I don't like doctors."

~*~

Sands had stretched himself across the bed, prone, naked, cheek pillowed on his folded arms. El lay beside him, just far enough apart that sweat sticky skin didn't touch. One knee bent, foot flat against the tangled sheets. If he turned his head, he could look at Sands' face.

If he turned his head, he might wake the other man.

If Sands was a sleep. Sands kept his eyelids closed whenever the sunglasses came off. He was limp as a sleeper now, but El knew Sands might only be waiting. He fooled El sometimes when he was still and silent.

El craved silence, but not Sands' silence.

He blinked wearily at the cracked and shadowed plaster ceiling, listening to the soft whisper of Sands breathing beside him. The oppressive hours of the afternoon slid away on that drowsy rhythm. Sometimes he closed his eyes. Maybe he slept too. If so, he didn't dream, and he was grateful. He hated his dreams.

The light had changed when El left the bed and padded quietly into the bathroom to shower. The open windows let in the sound of the city, subtly attenuated by the altitude; the traffic, voices, horns, bells, dogs, and music that blended into the constant background din that was also Mexico's voice. It rushed and receded, ceaseless as the surf, muffling the soft sounds of his own movements.

He dressed and picked up Sands' clothes, folding and placing them on a rickety table beside the bed. Set them next to Sands' guns, the only thing the other man always made sure he could find. That made El smile grimly. His own guns were always within reach.

Just in case. Or in his case, in the guitar case, Sands would say.

The room's windows faced west. Long shadows crept away from the molten fire dipping down to the horizon. Saffron dust burned in the heavy light, drifting, dying sparks of fire. One slatted shutter, half-closed, striped tiger bars over the yellowed, smooth ivory of Sands' shoulders.

El paused beside the bed and looked at Sands. He traced his gaze along the sinuous line of Sands' spine, the hollowed ripple of his ribcage, along long bones made to be strummed into music and quick heat, bruise-blooms dark and damning on his hips and arms.

Beautiful, but not the way Carolina had been. Whatever it was he felt for Sands, it wasn't what he'd felt for her. He had loved his wife and child with all his soul. That soul had died with them. He didn't want to resurrect it. He and Sands weren't even friends. So what was it he felt? More than lust, lust he could slake with someone easier than Sands. Sands demanded, Sands needed, Sands was a fistful of shattered glass.

Sands had slid under El's skin and made himself a necessity.

Because Sands shuddered under El's touch as though each caress was a blow. Because Sands wasn't Carolina. Because Sands wouldn't have refused Marquez; Sands would have smiled and gone to him and cut his throat in the night. Sands wouldn't have died and Sands didn't know what guilt was. He wouldn't let El bury himself in it.

Maybe it was that simple. Sands was alive and Carolina was dead. Or maybe it was as complicated as one of Sands' plans. It didn't matter. El would hold onto Sands as long as he could.

Sands stirred and lifted his head. Spilled silk hair fell over his jaw. A faint frown drew his brows, like two strokes of ink, together. El held still as one breath followed the next, meshed with Sands, through a count of ten. Sands' whole body tightened, muscle drawing taut.

"El?"

He shifted enough for Sands to hear, then added, _"Sí."_

"You know, El, one of these days you'll stand there like a dumb rock, and I do mean dumb not mute, and I'll shoot you," Sands said and rolled over. He spread his arms out and stretched like a cat, his head tipped back, back bowed. His lips were parted, his eyelids still closed. Long lashes and paper-thin skin hid scar-tissued hollows. Only someone who knew what to look for would see Sands' eyelids closed over disturbing concavities. Sands relaxed, not lifting his head, and wriggled. "Yes, I'll shoot you, because I'll know it's you, my little gunbunny, and that staring thing irritates the holy fuck out of me."

"Holy fuck?" El repeated, amused. He wasn't even going to acknowledge 'gunbunny'. It was improvement over 'fretsucker', anyway. Sands was apparently feeling mellow after his siesta.

"Holy fuck," Sands echoed. He sat up and folded his legs indian-style, completely oblivious to his nudity - or just as likely, completely aware and deliberately giving El a show. A smug smile flashed white teeth. He held out one imperious hand. "Glasses."

El shook his head, found the sunglasses next to Sands' guns, and placed them in his hand. Sands slipped them on like a man donning armor, then finger-combed his hair behind his ears.

"So," he said, settling his forearms over his bent knees, "what shall we do with ourselves tonight, here at the oh so exciting Casa Cucarocha?"

"Have you seen any cockroaches, Sands?"

"Oh, very funny, El, listen, I'm the only one who gets to make bad jokes in this - " he hesitated, hands moving aimlessly, and El thought maybe the words had surprised Sands, " - partnership. Anyway, I can _hear _the little fuckers."

El shrugged. At first he would always stop and say something awkward in the hanging instant after he remembered Sands couldn't see him shrug. But the chains that pegged his pants close or on the cuffs of his scorpion jacket sang descant to his every movement, and Sands was a quick study, fast to interpret all of El's movements without words or sight.

Sands was clever and El would have wondered how Barillo's daughter had fooled him, if he wasn't a man too.

"Then hope your 'friend' calls soon," he said. "We should be in Cancún already."

"Well, if we were in Cancún, you couldn't have dragged me into that fumblefingered fucker's office today, could you?" Sands pointed out, teeth bared. "Telling me I can be the proud owner of two glass eyes like they'd do me any pea-picking good."

The specialist had spoke of polyacrylics and the difficulties of matching the former appearance of Sands' eyes without at least one to use as a template. Multiple surgeries to reduce the scarring and fit the artificial eyes that would fill the empty wounds. Sands had been almost silent, listening with his head tipped, long fingers drumming on one knee. El had been surprised that they had walked out leaving the doctor alive; even to him, the man had seemed patronizing. He'd seen the muscles along Sands' jaw rippling as he gritted his teeth.

Nothing had been said about the visit afterward. "Take me back to the hotel _now_," Sands had demanded. Inside the hotel room, he'd torn his hands down El's sides, bit and pushed and cursed, burning them both to the bone, until they collapsed side by side, satiated, on the bed.

Suddenly, Sands scrambled off the bed. One hand found the edge of the table. Then he had his clothes and began dressing. "Okay, you know, I feel like eating something. It's Mexico City, it's the capitol of this backwater joke of a country, there are restaurants where I can get something that isn't beans or rice."

"Do I have to worry about the cook?"

Sands spun around and grinned. "Now, that would be sadly predictable, my friend."

One thing that Sands wasn't, El reflected. Nothing more was to be said about the doctor's recommendations.

"Next time, you can shoot the cook," Sands offered grandly.

_"Gracias."_

"Now point me at the phone. I've decided we're going to El Mosaico and we'll need reservations unless I can work my magic."

El listened in surprise as Sands spoke on the phone, his Spanish fluid and his familiarity with the restaurant in question obvious. He'd thought most of Sands' 'magic' consisted of bullets or American dollars, but Sands was charming and cajoling on the phone. Soon they were on their way, assured a table would be waiting for them. The guitar case full of guns sat in the back seat.

"North African, El," Sands expounded once they were in the old convertible. "You have to try it. When I was in Marrakesh, I would have the tagine. It's a simple stew, slow cooked, with spiced meat and vegetables. I'm sure you'll like it."

El added that morsel to his store of knowledge about Sands. Sands had been in Morocco. Sands didn't answer questions, but sometimes revealed small pieces of his past when he was pleased.

"Did you ever see _Casablanca?_" Sands suddenly asked.

_"Sí."_

"Good movie," Sands said. Nothing more. El sighed. He was sure that a thread of connection ran between Sands' apparent abrupt switches in subject, but it could be exhausting trying to track it down. Sands often paused as if waiting for El to catch up.

When El didn't comment, Sands began winding the window down, abandoning the conversation.

They were in the car, Sands leaning his head out the window so the wind tore his hair loose and wild and and El wanted to grab and pull him back, when the cell phone Quin had provided began playing. El frowned, almost recognizing the tinny stretch of music. Sands fell back into the car and dug the slim instrument from his pocket, remarking, "I think I know why dogs like to do that." The giddy smile stripped off his face as he spoke into the phone. "God save the Queen, my friend, really, that is so sweet and patriotic."

Sands slouched around until his shoulders were braced against the car door and his long, denim-clad legs were stretched across the bench seat, his booted feet in El's lap. El gritted his teeth and ignored them, sure that if he tried to make Sands move, the car would end up in the ditch while Sands pitched a fit. The old car was roomy enough anyway that El could still steer.

"Listen, no, I don't care, I want copies, El can look at them," Sands said into the phone. "No, no, of course I trust you, do I look like a guy who doesn't trust people? No? Wow, did they teach you that kind of talk at Eton?"

El was tempted to pull the car over so he could watch Sands' face as he talked. The American had come alive since they left their village, humming with a febrile energy reminiscent of their first meeting. He was focused on conjuring something El could use to find Lorenzo's girl when they reached Cancún.

"So, where and when, because I'm kind of on a sort of time table here," Sands said.

El slowed the car, expecting their destination to change. A glance to the side showed him Sands' eyebrows arching.

"Oh, my Christ, does it have to be the church? Yes, I know where it is, thank you, a blind man could just follow the sound of the fucking bells." Sands pulled the cell away from his ear and mouthed something silently at it. El blew out a long breath, thinking the Brit from earlier in the day was lucky not to be in the car with them. Sands would shoot him and then apologize about the upholstery.

"Fine, listen, it's fine, we'll be there, don't get your panties in a twist," Sands said and closed the phone up. He let his head drop back and rocked one boot against the steering wheel. "You know," he said, addressing the sky as much as El, "I've known that attenuated English twit since we were both posted in Bangkok - where I saved his pasty ass on at least two occasions - and now he acts like he's doing me a favor."

"He is."

Sands shook his head. "It's a sad thing. No gratitude. Listen, did I double-cross you? Did I double-cross anyone? If you'll think about it carefully, my friend, you'll see that I only offered everyone exactly what they wanted. So I wanted to make a small profit at the same time; is that so awful? I'm a CIA agent - well, I was - they hired me because I'm sneaky and ruthless and don't mind taking candy from babies."

"People don't like being manipulated," El commented.

"Oh, gee, El, you don't say."

El slowed the car as they approached an intersection.

"Where do we go?"

"The Zócalo. We are going to church, my friend, where I am sure one of us shall surely burst into blasphemous flame as soon as we step foot inside."

"I go to Church." A habit he continued out of respect for the padre in the village. His faith had long since burnt to ashes.

Sands laughed.

"Of course, you do, the Pope's got all you Mexicans by the short'n'curlies. Well, it may surprise you, El, but I used to go to church." Sands' mouth thinned and his expression went cold. "I was once an altar boy."

He jack-knifed his boots out of El's lap and swung himself into a sitting position.

"Good old Father Alejandro," Sands said. He smiled a mirthless, feral smile as the name rolled off his tongue. He slid one of his guns out of the holster and began fingering it lovingly, stroking the barrel. "Why, I haven't thought of him in years."

His tone made El shiver.

El was no innocent. He had little use for the Church at all, though he had tried to hold onto his faith in God. He knew many priests broke their vows or worse. Few men were as good as the padre of Villa Perdidos.

He wished fervently that Sands still had his eyes. He wanted - needed - to see the expression that went with his words. El hadn't always been able to read the eyes of others, but he'd learned. He thought if he could have looked into Sands' eyes he would know if the thing he suspected had happened to him. But Sands was forever hidden behind his sunglasses.

"It's all a con, El. Take Father Alejandro. Spent his days drinking wine and diddling unhappy wives."

El let out a harsh breath in relief. Sands' faced him, expression opaque.

"Were you thinking maybe he diddled _me?"_ he asked, brows arching, face assuming an exaggerated mime of inquiry.

_"Priests are men,"_ El said. _"Men with power."_

"And power corrupts, no kidding, El," Sands said. "Well, Father Alejandro wasn't a kiddiefucker, just a spineless adulterer. If he'd touched me instead of my dear mother, Big Jeff Sands would have used a shotgun on him instead of his fists and the good people of Austin would have thrown him a party afterwards."

El nodded.

"So, listen, Quin wants to meet in the Sagrario Metropolitano, in the parish church," Sands said, veering away from the subject of his family. El let it go. He had no wish to speak of his own past, why should he push Sands? "If we get there quick enough, we can still make our reservation at El Mosaico. Then we can get out of this overcrowded armpit and back on the road."

The convertible surged forward as El hit the gas. Sands laughed.

~*~

The stillness of the church soothed El. He bowed his head and crossed himself as they stepped inside. Ingrained habit. Beside him, Sands snickered as they paused but didn't comment. They were in the parish church attached to the main cathedral. Not quite so grand or so crowded with tourists and worshippers, but not empty.

"Third row from the back on the right," Sands said softly. El guided him with a hand on his elbow to the empty row in a shadowy portion of the church. He carried the guitar case in his other hand. The benches were dark wood, heavy and smelling faintly of beeswax polish. They sat down and waited.

El didn't let the peace of quiet and candles and stained-glass light relax him too far. Churches were no safer than cantinas in his experience.

Sands sat beside him on the smooth wooden bench. The American was quiet, sitting straight-backed and still. His hair was pushed behind his ears again. The ends curled over his collar. His face was tipped up, facing the altar and the stained glass windows above it. The light painted his pale skin with gold and red.

The Englishman arrived and sat down in the row ahead of them. He laid his coat on the bench beside him and his briefcase on the floor. El scanned the church for anyone watching.

Sands spoke without looking down.

"Tell me a story, Quin."

The Englishman didn't turn around. "I hate you, Sands."

Sands' lips quirked into an almost smile. El guessed he preferred hate to pity.

Quin's graying head dipped and he pushed the briefcase back under to bench with his foot. "It's all in there."

"Grand, grand," Sands said. "But you and I both know how much never gets typed up, my friend, and I want that too." He leaned forward. "Come on, Quin, don't make me go into this blind in more ways than one."

Quin flinched. "Bloody hell, Sands."

He half turned so he could face El and Sands. His broad forehead was creased into a frown, blue eyes narrowed. He had an impressively large nose that had been broken and flattened more than once.

"Why the hell are you still down here? Why not go back home? You've already pressed your luck too far - "

"This is home," Sands murmured.

El glanced at him. His face was strained. "Mexico?" he asked in surprise.

"No," Quin answered for Sands. "The edge."

Sands shrugged and said, "Golly, Quin, thanks for the psychoanalysis. Now, shall we get back to the point of this little get-together?"

Quin clenched his jaw. He turned back toward the altar.

"Esteban Bautista first showed up on our radar when he attended Oxford," he told them in an undertone. "His father was a major behind-the-scenes player in the PRI until some bad investments lost the family just about everything. Esteban was in England at the time and managed to support himself quite comfortably with some underhanded doings. "

Sands waved his hand. "Boring, my friend, just give me the quick and dirty version."

El could hear Quin grit his teeth.

"Bautista has built a major criminal enterprise from the ground up. His organization specializes in Mexican brown - heroin - and marijuana. He's vertically integrated: he controls his own poppy fields, production labs, and marketing routes. Most of the product is distributed in the US and Canada, with the rest sold here in Mexico or through out the Caribbean. He's smart, he's educated, he has contacts in Europe, South America and your United States."

Sands sat up straighter.

"He married Maria Teresa Gonzalez for her family money and contacts," Quin went on. "But she takes an active part in his business; she has a degree in international finance and handles the money laundering - her way of making sure Esteban never decides to replace her with a newer model. Lately, there are rumors Bautista is branching out beyond drugs into arms dealing and politics. Members of his cartel have been moving in and out of the Chiapas district and he's been seen meeting with Christophe Guillairme, too."

"Arms dealer to the slick and sleazy," Sands told El _sotto voce._

"The only people who need more guns in Chiapas are the Zapatistas," El replied.

"Bloody right," Quin said. "It looks like Bautista is trying to forge the sort of unholy alliance of drug dealing and terrorists that happened in Colombia and Peru."

Sands whistled under his breath. "Guns for the rebels, the rebels for muscle, that's an old, old story."

_"Sí," _El agreed. _ "It is the innocents who are in the way who always pay in the end."_

"Picture me rolling my eyes here, friend," Sands whispered.

"Bautista's main enforcer is a greasy little psycho called Chucho," Quin said. He kept his voice low and he never looked back at them. "You don't want to run into this guy, Sands. He gets off on torture and blood, raping underage kids, and killing things. If he didn't work for Bautista, he'd be locked away somewhere."

Quin went on, "Chucho's obsessed with making his reputation as a gunfighter and killer. He likes playing with knives too."

El suppressed a snort. He'd killed plenty of men like this Chucho.

Sands had leaned forward again, resting his elbows on his knees. With his neck bent, he could have been praying.

"Gosh, Quin, he sounds just right for the Company. Funny I never heard of him before."

"Funny, hah hah," Quin hissed. "Guess who moved in and began palling around with Chucho and the Bautistas just a couple months ago? Your old Agency friend Heller."

Sands's head jerked up. His hands curled into fists, knuckles shining white through the skin.

"Heller's in Mexico?"

"You didn't know?" Quin asked.

Sands shook his head distractedly. "The COS never said anything. I thought Veronica had him working the Ivory Coast." In a distracted undertone, he added, "I kept hoping I'd hear someone chopped his head off."

"He's been down in Chiapas the last six months, Sands."

"That long? Golly, he never even stopped by to say hello," Sands said. A light sheen of sweat had broken out on his upper lip. Flickering candle flames reflected across his black sunglasses.

Quin scooped up his coat.

"Two more things you might like to know," he said. "The Colombians have a bounty out on your friend here. One million American for whoever brings them his head and hands."

"And?"

"General consensus back in DC is that you're either dead or sold out to the cartels. The Agency has lost half its networks south of the border and shut the rest down. They figure you're responsible. No one's going to try too hard to bring you in for debriefing. Understand?"

Sands bared his teeth. "Well, to tell the truth, my friend, that's about how I had it figured."

El nodded to himself. That explained in part why Sands had stayed with him. He asked, "Do any of these … people know Sands and I are together?"

"No," Quin said. He stood and began to walk away.

"Hey," Sands called softly.

Quin paused.

_"Muchas gracias_, Quin. We're even now."

_"Watch your back, Sands."_

Sands laughed very softly at that.

They waited ten more minutes before exiting the church with a wave of tourists leaving the cathedral. While they waited, Sands pulled the thick collection of files out of the briefcase, ruffled the pages, then shoved them inside El's guitar case, on top of the false-face guitar.

"Every good kidnapper knows to switch the ransom out of whatever it's delivered in," he commented as he closed the latches. "Too easy to stick a tracker in it."

"We aren't kidnappers," El pointed out.

Sands tipped his face up. "No, we're two guys wanted variously by the cartels, the Colombians, the federales, and the Company. I tend to think taking a few basic precautions might not go amiss."

El raised an eyebrow, then chuckled.

"What?" Sands asked.

"If you want to keep a low profile, I think wearing a T-shirt that says Shuck Me, Suck Me, Eat Me Raw is counterproductive," El said.

"A bad disguise can work as well as a good one, my friend," Sands explained. "All anyone remembers is the T-shirt or the hat or the bushy mustache and argyle socks. Lose them and no one knows you from Adam."

Possibly, El acknowledged, though he couldn't imagine anyone forgetting Sands once they encountered him. More likely Sands used his outrageous 'disguises' to see how far he could push his luck, then shot his way out of whatever mess he ended up in.

It didn't matter to him. If he cared about not drawing attention to himself, he wouldn't still dress like a mariachi.

~*~

Sands slept most of the time they were on the road. El encouraged it; he knew Sands found his inability to drive or read through the files Quin had provided profoundly frustrating. Awake, he was constantly spinning through the radio dial, chain-smoking his hand-rolled cigarettes, and talking non-stop. El would have enjoyed that - Sands was clever and vicious and amusing - but for the desperate edge to it.

He ended up slumped, cheek against El's shoulder, most of the time. El had to rescue a still smoldering cigarette from his hand once, finishing it himself.

He knew part of what was bothering Sands. In Villa Perdidos, Sands had learned to compensate for his blindness. Thrust into the clamor and crowds of Mexico City, Sands had been slapped in the face with exactly how much he couldn't compensate. Sands was feeling insecure and covering it up with more and more words and wisecracks and insults.

The appointment with the doctor had probably been a mistake, El acknowledged. Nothing had been gained.

There was something more than that bothering Sands, though. Something that had been bothering him since the last meeting with Quin. No matter how much he talked, he wasn't talking about that.

Maybe bringing Sands along was a mistake. He was coping for the moment, but El sensed the control was just a thin veneer over the turmoil inside. He didn't want to see Sands snap.

He wasn't sure how Lorenzo and Fideo would react, either. Not so much to Sands, he knew Sands would do his utmost to outrage and irritate them, but what would they think of him and Sands together? No, he knew that Fideo wouldn't care. Fideo cared only for his music, his next bottle and his few friends. He would accept Sands without blinking. Lorenzo, though, could be a self-righeous little prick. Though if he was that taken with this girl, he might ignore Sands in favor of getting her back.

Too much to hope for, El thought. Lorenzo was bound to say something that would set Sands off. It would be very lucky if there was no bloodshed between them.

At least this time, El wouldn't be walking into town without a clue. He'd gone after the cartels from the bottom up before, one kill leading him to the next target, barely surviving from one shoot-out to the next, until the day he looked through a rifle scope at a man who called himself Bucho … and saw his brother Cesar.

El rubbed his face tiredly, then slung his arm around Sands' shoulders. Sands murmured and twisted closer to him, but didn't wake. Something tiresomely upbeat and laced with static played from the radio, while El kept the old car rolling down the highway as fast as its aging engine would handle.

**One Step Closer To Hell**

El led him into a hotel and up a set of stairs, before stopping in front of a door and hammering a tattoo against it. "Lorenzo! Fideo!" He held Sands' wrist lightly in his other hand. Sands tugged experimentally, but El's hold didn't loosen.

He shrugged. Let El's friends think what they would.

The door slammed open.

"El - "

Whoever it was, had caught sight of Sands standing just in El's shadow.

"Who the hell is that?"

"Someone who has already helped," El declared and pushed past, still dragging Sands by his wrist. Sands stumbled and jerked back.

"Hey, slow down, fuckmook," he exclaimed, trying to orient himself. El pulled him another few steps, then shoved him down. Sands fell into a sofa with an ooof. "Dumbshit stubborn mariachi."

El leaned his guitar case against Sands' knee. Sands immediately latched his hand onto it. It was almost the same as being able to hold onto El, it was a part of the man.

"Fideo," El said. "This is Sands."

_"Is this the other guy the cartel wants? Are we going to trade him for Anna then?" _

"I understand Spanish perfectly well, you know," Sands remarked. "And if you think you're bartering me for some stupid girlfriend, I will personally shove your guitar up your jingling mariachi ass. Sideways." He had his gun out and aimed at the slurred voice's location.

"He's with me," El said in a tired voice.

"With you?" asked a second voice. Lorenzo of the kidnapped girlfriend, Sands deduced. Voice entirely too close and Sands tightened his grip on the gun and moved, just in time to avoid a swipe meant to knock it out of his hand. He twisted, kicked and grabbed, jerking whoever it was forward and screwing his gun into an ear. "Fuck, let go!"

"Mine," El said. He strode over, chains sounding, and separated Sands' gun from Lorenzo's head. Ran a caressing thumb over the inside of Sands' bare wrist, until his heartbeat was speeding. He forgot and let go of Lorenzo, barely registering the man half falling away and cursing.

"Bastard," Sands breathed. He slid the gun back into its holster under his arm and settled back into the couch.

Fideo was laughing.

El settled onto the couch next to Sands. He picked up the guitar case, laid it over his knees and opened it, taking out the files Quin had reluctantly provided for them.

"What's that?" Lorenzo asked.

"Everything the other spook shops in Mexico City know about the Bautista cartel, down to the floor plan and security system of his estado in Chiapas," Sands said promptly. He'd heard the flutter of papers. He pulled off his gloves and buffed his nails against his sleeve. "Don't thank me, it's not like any of you could have pulled strings and got hold of anything half as detailed."

"No, none of us are rogue CIA agents," El agreed.

"I don't see you - " Sands stopped and half-laughed " - obviously. Golly, El, you weren't too proud to read everything I got from Quin, so get off your high horse." He felt a little outraged. Lorenzo and Fideo were nothing to him. He didn't know them or care to. El might have earned his precarious loyalty and secret affection, but it didn't carry over to anyone else. He had a reputation as an unstable mercenary sleazeball to maintain. He wasn't going to run around playing Sir Galahad.

A ruffle of paper was El handing the files to Lorenzo. Then his hand wrapped around the nape of Sands' neck and he ran his fingers under Sands' loose hair, petting him until Sands relaxed and leaned against him.

"Wait," said Lorenzo. "Is this the guy that had you kidnapped and wanted you to kill El Presidente? The CIA guy?"

"All a terrible misunderstanding," Sands muttered. El was melting his bones with just that touch.

"But you wanted El to kill the president!" Lorenzo exclaimed.

"No, I wanted him to kill Marquez, which he did, making everyone happy," Sands objected. He paused and added with cat-like satisfaction, "Except Marquez."

El made his own sound of pleasure at that memory.

"The CIA wanted me to get someone to kill your president," Sands explained. He sighed and wriggled closer to El. It wasn't like he gave a flying fuck what either Fideo or Lorenzo thought, and when he was touching El, he could relax. "As soon as I found El, I knew he wouldn't do it. It was perfect." Not that he'd given a goose-down goddamn about El Presidente. But it was such a kick, throwing shapes, seeing everyone unknowingly play their part, even to when they thought they were double-crossing him. "The cartel would be beheaded, the coup would fail, I would walk away with a fortune, the girl, and tell the CIA to piss up a rope."

"So why're you here now?" Fideo slurred out. A clink of glass told Sands he'd just set down a bottle.

Sands sighed.

"The girl turned out to be Barillo's daughter. On a personal note, _El Día de los Muertos_ was kind of a bad day for me. Barillo's doctor put out my eyes on Ajedrez' orders."

He heard the sharp breaths drawn by Lorenzo and Fideo. He smiled a thin lipped smile without much humor.

"On a professional note, the plan worked. Though you fuckmooks got away with my money."

"Your money?" El asked, amused.

Sands shrugged. "Barillo's money, my money, somebody's money, they've got it now." He sat up a little. "You do still have it, right?" he asked Fideo and Lorenzo. "You haven't lost it all?"

"Not all of it," Lorenzo said darkly.

"Oh, thank Jesus, I just couldn't bear to think some sticky-fingered police rat had made off with all that dough," he declared.

El dragged Sands back against him. "We need a plan to get Anna back."

"Like you ever have a plan," Sands sniped. He curled closer to El's side, let his head rest against El's shoulder. Didn't rub his cheek against jacket's fabric, though it smelled enticingly of dust and blood, gun smoke and El himself, like a hot desert wind, and was worn to an almost velvety softness. Sands hadn't let himself be very tactile before being blinded, but couldn't suppress the need for sensation now. El called him his cat. _ Mi gato._ Sands thought he should object, but never did.

"So you'll think of one," El said.

Sands snorted. "My plan would be for both of us to get our heinies out of here and let someone else go get shot at. Give Galahad and his buddy over there Quin's files, call it favor done, and book back to Guitar Town."

"No," El said.

Sands huffed out a breath. "I knew you were going to go all heroic and stupid stubborn on me."

"We need to find out where the cartel have taken Anna."

"Chucho is the one who took her," Lorenzo said. "He works for Bautista himself."

"My buddy Quin told us about Chucho," Sands remarked. He didn't mention what Quin had said. If this idiot Lorenzo was as hung up on the woman that Chucho had taken as El had implied, the news that Chucho liked to cut and rape his women wouldn't be happy making. He'd let El tell his buddy about that. Well, he'd let El tell the details. Or Lorenzo could read the files. That would be bad enough. Sands had memorized everything El had read to him from them, though he wondered if that had been all of it. He considered the possibility that El would keep him, so to speak, in the dark about some things quite real.

He added, "Typical psycho with a knife fetish."

"Do you think he's still here in Cancún?" El asked quietly.

"No," Fideo answered. "We think he took Anna away. The policía are a little more strict here. Don't want to scare aware the American tourists."

"Bautista is running his cartel from Chiapas," El said thoughtfully. "Someone there will know about Chucho. We go there next."

Sands couldn't see, but the instinct to close his eyes was still there. Instead, he turned his face into El's jacket and decided not to say any more. He certainly wasn't going to say that he didn't want to go to Chiapas because it might mean facing Abe Heller. Doing that with his eyes would have been bad enough; going up against him without them scared the crap out of him.

"All of us?" Fideo asked. Sands picked out the sound of him bolting the door, crossing the room and sitting on a chair opposite where El sat on the couch.

_"Sí."_

Lorenzo ruffled the papers in his hand. "Oh, man, I don't believe this. There's another CIA agent involved in this shit? These reports are fucked, you can't even tell if he's working for the cartel or the Americans."

"He is working for himself, I think," El said.

"It still looks like he's been bought," Lorenzo insisted. "Just like your gringo."

Sands stiffened and almost flung himself at the scornful voice. El's hand clamped onto his shoulder, ready to stop him if he tried, but he held onto his own control precariously. He didn't know if Lorenzo and Fideo could see the quiver running through his body, but he knew El could feel it. He caught his breath and forced himself to speak steadily.

"Listen, you syphilitic little dickweed, I used people, I screwed them over, even killed them if they pissed me off, and I damn well enjoyed every minute of it, but I never worked for the cartels."

Sands clenched his hands ,then flexed them open. Stupid thing to get ticked off over since he never really believed working for the Company made him some kind of good guy. It hadn't taken him long to accept the corruption that was part of fieldwork everywhere he'd ever been stationed or to find new and cleverer ways to get his cut. He'd always been a fast learner and what he'd learned was to the play the game by his own rules. He hadn't stolen from the Company or contemplated selling them out, because that would have been stupid and he'd always thought he was smarter than everyone else. The beauty of his plans had always been that they did the job for the Agency _and_ netted him a profit too. He'd taken pride in that.

He let El settle him along his side, suddenly horribly exhausted, reminded that he could never go back. Even going to Quin had been a calculated risk. He didn't think Quin would see any real value to telling the CIA their wayward agent remained alive and active in Mexico. But he couldn't calculate everything that could change.

The States hadn't been his home in too long, anyway. The times he'd been called back to Langley or visited his increasingly indifferent family in Austin, he been a stranger there too. The only place he had felt at home in years was next to El. There were terms for that too, clever psychological descriptions of trauma-induced dependency, transference, and acculturation, but Sands didn't care about any of that. It was just that he'd been _good_ at his job before falling for Ajedrez. The bitterest knowledge wasn't that she hadn't loved him, but that he hadn't known enough about love to realize what he felt wasn't love either.

How fucked up was that, mourning because he hadn't been in love with the hellbitch? It was almost funny and certainly enough to get him locked up if a shrink ever got a glimpse into his mind.

"Tell us about Heller," El commanded quietly. "You know him."

"Yeah, El, I know him," Sands admitted. "He's a piece of work."

He stopped and shuddered.

El waited.

Lorenzo flipped the pages of the file loudly. _"There's so much here. Bautista has tentacles everywhere," _he said. _"How do we figure out where Chucho would take Anna?"_

_"Mi gato?_" El murmured.

Sands shook his head, letting his hair fall like a shadow over his face. El caught the strands and brushed them back with string-calloused fingers, then brushed them feather light along Sands' temple.

"Talk to me."

"Okay," he said tiredly, "we don't have figure where he took her. Just wherever the fuck he is. Then you get what you need to know from him and dump the body in the nearest river."

Fideo laughed. Sands heard glass clink and the sound of swallowing. The sharp alcohol scent of cheap tequila and cigarette smoke marked the second mariachi for Sands. Lorenzo was some musky cologne and coffee. He thought from the sound of the way they moved that Fideo was shorter than Lorenzo. Lorenzo had been lanky when Sands grabbed him. It was impossible to imagine what they looked like, though.

"I like him," Fideo said.

"Golly, I'm just thrilled to hear that," Sands snapped. El tightened the arm around him. "I want some of the tequila."

He didn't expect any response to that and was surprised when Fideo grabbed one of his hands and shoved a glass into it and sloshed tequila into it.

It was cheap stuff and burned going down. He didn't care.

"So how do we find Chucho?" Lorenzo demanded. "There's nothing in here." Papers rustled.

"How'd you used to hunt down cartel guys?" Sands asked.

El shifted next him. "Before," - before he married Carolina and tried to put away his guns - "I would send my friend Buscemi into a bar. He'd tell a story, something, and if someone in the bar reacted, I'd begin there."

~*~

The drunk had a lot of curly hair and dark, slitted eyes. He sat braced with his elbows on the bar, swaying on the stool, sneering at the bartender. The bar's interior was dim and almost cool compared to the brilliant midday heat outside. It stank of stale beer, smoke, and sweat.

_"I was in a bar there,"_ he slurred out. _"The beer tasted just like this piss."_ He frowned at the mug in his hand and emptied it anyway.

The bartender, a pockmarked and gaunt man wearing a dingy, sweat-stained guayabera shirt, ignored the thud of the empty mug hitting the scarred bar-top. Several seats down, a younger man in a slightly cleaner shirt sat beside a shopworn girl in a tight yellow dress. His hand was on her thigh, creeping up under the skirt. She ignored him in favor of a cigarette and another swallow of beer.

_"Hey!_" the drunk said. He banged the empty mug again.

_"A viente!_" the bartender told him.

The girl tipped her head back and laughed. Dull light flashed off her big hoop earrings. Her boyfriend looked at the drunk, showing a face much like the bartender's, but darker and unscarred. A multitude of large, gold rings flashed on his fingers. He drummed them on the dark wood of the bar-top.

He smiled mockingly at the drunk and said, _"Go on, tell us what happened at this bar. Where was it again?"_

That earned him a sly look.

_"Cancún."_

_"A long way from here, amigo."_

The drunk nodded to himself and dug out a wad of crumpled peso notes, pushing them across the bar-top. _"Gimme tequila."_

The bartender scooped up the money and produced a bottle and a shot glass. The drunk peered at the label briefly, then shrugged and poured himself a generous measure. Despite his shaking hands, not a drop was lost. He tossed it back like water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

_"I was just sitting there, minding my business,_" he went on, _"because that's what you do when you're in a bar that's a cartel front."_ He nodded to himself, dark hair bobbing around his cheekbones. It could have done with a wash. So could the rest of him. Not that anyone in this bar was in a position to comment. _"So there I was, just having a drink, when in they walked."_

The bartender had begun wiping at a mug with a dirty cloth. He stopped. The wall behind him held a dusty collection of fly-specked bottles, splintering the dim light through the glass into faded crystal reflections of green, amber, and blue. Obviously his desultory efforts at cleaning had never extended that far.

_"Who?"_

The drunk grinned slyly.

Softly, so that anyone listening had to lean forward to hear, he said:

_"El Mariachi."_

_"The Mariachi is a myth,"_ the young man said scornfully. _"Besides, you said 'they'."_

_"Shut up, Cochi,"_ the girl snapped. She lit another cigarette, exhaled smoke and waved her hand at the drunk. _ "Go on."_

The drunk nodded, the sly smile still curling his lips. He swallowed some more tequila. The bartender began drying the smeary mug again, but his attention was on the drunk.

_"He wasn't alone,"_ the drunk said. He waggled the tequila bottle, admiring the slosh of alcohol inside the glass. _ "Right behind him, like his shadow, was a blind gringo."_

_"A blind gringo?"_ Cochi repeated. The bartender laughed.

_"You think that's funny?"_ the drunk muttered.

_"Hell yeah, it_ is _funny."_

_"Well, it was real funny when the Mariachi tells everyone in the bar he's looking for Chucho."_

Various patrons stirred uncomfortably, recognizing the name.

_"It got even funnier when no one would answer him,"_ the drunk mumbled. He lifted his head and blinked almost suspiciously at the bartender. Then he pointed at him. _"He started with the bartender."_

_"Started what?_" the bartender asked nervously.

The drunk laughed. He poured himself another glass of tequila, spilling a few drops this time. No one bothered to wipe it up.

_"Pulled him right over the bar and pinned him to the floor with his boot,"_ the drunk said. He blinked fast. _"Someone went for his gun, but that gringo just pulled out a pistol and said anyone that moved would get shot."_

_"I thought you said the gringo was blind?"_ bartender objected.

The drunk nodded fast. _"Sí, that's why somebody moved."_

_"What happened?"_ the girl asked in a hushed voice.

_"The gringo shot him."_

_"No mames?"_ Cochi exclaimed.

The drunk laughed again. _ "Es verdad. Then the Mariachi, he asked where Chucho was. The bartender, he was pissing himself, but he couldn't talk with that boot on his throat, and no one else said a word when the gringo asked."_

The bartender flipped his towel over his shoulder, pulled a bottle off the shelf and poured a glass for Cochi, the girl, and himself. He tossed his back fast. _"Here's to a man with balls."_

Cochi drank too, but the girl just ran her finger over the lip of the glass, smiled, and took a lipstick out of her purse, reapplying cherry-red paint to her mouth.

_"So?"_ she asked when she was done.

A shrug was the drunk's reply. _"The bartender said he didn't know and no one else would say anything, so the gringo had some tequila and then they left."_

Cochi and the bartender began laughing.

_"That's it? They left?"_

_"Well,"_ the drunk said, _"not quite."_

Everyone waited silently. A fat black fly buzzed against the dirty glasses in the sink behind the bar.

_"About the time they reached the door, the bartender pulled a shotgun out from under the bar."_

Cochi's girlfriend licked her wet, red lips. Her black eyes gleamed. A trickle of sweat ran down between her breasts. The drunk eyed it approvingly.

_"That's more like it,"_ the bartender approved.

_"You'd think so," _the drunk said. _"But before the bartender could do anything else, the Mariachi and the gringo turned around. And just like, just like -" _ He frowned and after two fumbling tries snapped his fingers. _ "- Just like that they both had guns in their hands."_

No one said anything. The drunk spread out his fingers and seemed to study them. Abruptly, he snapped back to attention.

_"That's when everyone got out their guns and the shooting started." _

_"Well?"_

_"They took that bar and everyone in it apart. Just fucked it right up. The Mariachi ended up standing on the bar and kicked the shotgun right out of the bartender's hands. Blew a great big hole in the ceiling when it hit the floor and went off."_

_"Mierda."_

The drunk nodded at that.

_"Hey, where were you?"_ Cochi asked. He looked a little nervous.

_"Under a table,"_ the drunk said. _"Except for the bartender and me, there was only one man left. Oso, they called him. Oso still had this chingada big .45. He would've killed the gringo, only before he could pull the trigger, the Mariachi turned around and shot him right between the eyes."_ He tapped his finger between his eyebrows. _"Right between the eyes."_

Cochi's girlfriend eyed the drunk, breathing deeply. _"This Mariachi, was he good looking?"_ she asked.

_"Like a fucking Mariachi god,"_ the drunk said. Somewhere in the back of the room someone choked and muttered a filthy obscenity.

She licked her lips. _"And the gringo?"_

_"That guero was real pretty, too."_

In the back, someone exclaimed, "Pretty?" followed by a muffled yelp.

Cochi glared at the girl._ "Puta."_

_"Hoto."_

The drunk began laughing and the pair turned to glare at him. He held up his hands as thought to fend them off.

_"Finish the story,"_ the bartender grumbled.

Another swig of tequila disappeared down the drunk's throat. _ "The bartender's staring up into the Mariachi's gun and the gringo comes over and kicks him. Maybe he didn't see him, hey? They ask where Chucho is again and, Mother of Christ, this bartender he just spills his guts. Tells them where this Chucho is, where he lives, who he's fucking, what kind of condoms he uses, and how many shits he takes a week."_

Cochi and the bartender eyed each other, both sweating and pale. _"Chingalo!"_ the bartender exclaimed. _ "Fucking chocho."_

Cochi turned back to the drunk, who grinned at him, oblivious to the undercurrents.

_"That bartender, he tells the Mariachi everything. Then the Mariachi and the gringo, they start to leave again. Only the gringo, he stops and goes back."_

_"Why?" _

_"To shoot the bartender. There was no lime for his tequila." _

_"You lying _pendejo_." _

The drunk crossed himself. _ "On the grave of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The gringo shot the bartender."_

_"And then what happened?"_ asked Cochi.

The drunk belched.

_"Fuck if I know,"_ he said. _"Guess they headed wherever the bartender told them Chucho was."_ He slapped his empty bottle down and lurched to his feet. _"Could be here for all I know,"_ he muttered. _"But I know I wouldn't want to be Chucho when they find him … or anyone in their way." _

No one said a word as he weaved his way toward the door and out.

The instant the door closed, though, the bartender went for his phone, while Cochi stood up. He grabbed his girlfriend's upper arm and dragged her to her feet.

_"Come on."_

_"I don't want to," _she whined.

Without any warning, he backhanded her across the cheek. She fell back against the bar, a swathe of black hair falling over her already reddening cheek.

_"Chingada tu madre, hijo de puta!"_ she spat. _"A ti no te parieron, te cagaron!"_

_"I said, come on. We have to go talk to the boss."_

_"Piss on you and that sick bastard!" _

Cochi grabbed her hair and pulled her close. _"You do what I say or I'll tell him you like it rough and want to play."_

_"No!"_

_"Then come on,"_ Cochi snarled and headed for the back exit. The girl glared at him for moment, then wobbled after him on her too-high heels.

The bartender was still talking intensely on the phone.

~*~

In the back of the bar, Sands muttered to his companion as he hit the redial on his cell phone, "Well, my friend, that was truly enlightening. I think the 'fucking Mariachi god' part was a tad overblown, but Fideo really knows how to work a room - ."

El kicked him.

_"Shut up."_

Sands snickered. Into the phone, he said, "Ah, Lorenzo, there's a couple coming out the back door."

El tried to take the cell phone. Sands jerked it away. "How the fuck do I know what they look like, limpdick?"

El reached for the phone again and Sands swatted at his arm, then asked in an undertone, "Hey, what was the girl wearing, anyway?"

"A yellow dress," El said.

"Listen, you dolt, even you should be able to spot this little hussy. She's got a yellow dress on, probably tighter than a virgin's back door, and her and the boyfriend are going to lead us right to the guy we want," Sands told Lorenzo. "So don't blow it and charge in like some feebleminded hero, okay? First we find out if the _chilito_ is around, then we rescue the fucking maiden fair. _Comprende?_"

He pulled the phone away from his ear. "Oh, and fuck you too," he muttered, before snapping it closed and shoving it into his coat pocket.

"You shouldn't taunt Lorenzo so much," El said.

"You know, El, I do know a little psychology, and as long as Lorenzo is busy being pissed at me, he isn't crying into his _cerveza_ over _Señorita_ Saint Anna," Sands said. He shrugged. "And he's easy. Fideo's usually too drunk to care what I say and you - you just - nothing touches you."

El said nothing but nudged Sands' boot with his.

Sands stretched his legs out, knocking the silver toe-tip of one of his black cowboy boots - purchased in Mexico City - against the single spur that decorated El's heel. A tiny adjustment and the rowel spun and rang. El rocked his heel back and braked the spur against the scarred floor, silencing it.

Sands smiled sweetly at him. "See?"

El narrowed his eyes at the other man. "See what?"

"You don't even get pissed."

"You're wrong."

Sands' eyebrows arched above the rims of his oil-black plastic sunglasses. "I'm never wrong," he said.

"You're an idiot," El replied.

Sands appeared to consider that. Finally, he shook his head. "No, though I can see how you might think so, since I'm here with you, getting ready to take on another fucking cartel, just so your little pal can have his girlfriend back. That does look sort of stupid."

El's humor faded away. "Why are you doing this, Sands?"

Sands found his sweating bottle of beer and turned it aimlessly.

"What else have I got to do?" He picked at the damp label with his fingernails. "The ever-loving truth is Quin has it right. I can't take 'normal' life. I get bored." He shrugged. "When I get bored, I get in trouble." A smile flashed white in the shadows. "Or I make trouble."

"So it's just a game to you?"

"Until it turns around and bites me in the ass."

"Like in Culiacan, on the Day of the Dead."

Sands twisted away from El for a breath. The dusty light traced a carved cheekbone pale as the curved bone of the skull beneath the skin. Then he smiled again, that half-mad, half-haunted smile that made something in El ache.

"Trusting Ajedrez would definitely qualify as screwing myself over to get screwed, I think. Looks like I lost that game, but she lost bigger."

El shook his head. Sands killed people and it was just a game. The man was insane.

"The day you take it serious, El, that's the day they've got you," Sands said suddenly. "That's what you've got to remember."

_"A man who wants nothing is invincible,"_ El quoted.

"Well, at least he won't care when he gets blown away," Sands said judiciously.

El laughed. There was nothing else he could do.

~*~

Sands found his way down to the hotel bar and a table in a corner. Fideo had still been sleeping off the night before when he crawled out of bed. Sands had heard the distinctive snore in the next room, while El and Lorenzo had disappeared early, off to scope out Bautista's estate. That had been the plan, anyway.

He sat and smoked, desultorily sipping a tequila and listening as the bar filled and emptied out over the lunch hour. Fragments of conversation, lifted voices and curiously penetrating whispers reached him. He paid only enough attention to know they weren't about him or anything of interest.

What the hell was he doing here?

The question circled round and round in his thoughts. He'd already fucked up once and paid royally. Why push his luck by coming here with El?

He should leave.

El didn't get it. He didn't have a clue about people like Abe Heller or Veronica or even Sands himself. Not really. Chucho and even Bautista, El knew how to handle them. Spooks were something different. There was a lot more going on here than some cartel gunman coincidentally deciding he wanted the same woman as Lorenzo. It just felt wrong, all of it.

He lit another cigarette, careful not to burn his fingertips. The harsh, hot taste of the smoke was as familiar as his skin, a part of himself that hadn't been ripped away or reshaped after the Day of the Dead.

El didn't feel it, like a noose tightening around his neck, but Sands did. The big problem was he couldn't tell if the trap was meant for him or for El. Either way, he knew the smart move would be to get out while he still could.

He exhaled the smoke through his nose.

Fuck, he didn't know himself anymore.

What the hell was he still doing here?

~*~

"Well, well, " Heller said to himself in singsong tone as he closed his cell phone. "Well, well, well, well." One of his men had come across something interesting and sent him a picture. "If it isn't little Jeffy Sands. Finally learned to sit with your back to the wall."

He snapped his fingers at Manolo.

_"Sí, señor?" _

"Where's Chucho?"

_"With Señor Bautista."_

Heller huffed in frustration.

"Fine. Get a couple of men," he directed. "We're going to go pick up my old pal Jeffy and find out what the hell he's doing down here in Chiapas." He headed for the door.

Manolo didn't move.

"Hey!" Heller said. "Come on."

Manolo shook his head. _"I think I better wait for Chucho."_

"You think? You don't fucking think, you follow orders and I just gave you one," Heller hissed.

_"I don't take orders from you, señor."_

Heller shrugged and turned back toward the door. His hand snaked under his jacket and he pulled out his pistol. He turned around and shot Manolo three times in the chest. Manolo's legs folded under him and he hit the floor. His eyes were wide and already dimming as Heller walked over and knelt beside him.

He patted Manolo's cheek until his eyes rolled toward Heller. "You listening, Manolo?"

A slow blink was his only answer, but Heller didn't mind. He considered the blood frothing from Manolo's mouth. He'd hit a lung with one of his shots.

He set the muzzle of his gun against Manolo's forehead.

"I _think _you should have followed my orders, pal," he said and pulled the trigger one more time.

~*~

Sands knew something was wrong when the bar went quiet. Instead of trying to get out himself, he lit another cigarette. A blind man had fuck-all chance of sneaking anywhere, so he'd just hold onto his dignity instead. He flicked the safety off the gun he held under the table.

He inhaled and cocked his head, trying just for the hell of it to count how many men had come in. The swift exit of the bar's other patrons confused the issue. Five, he thought.

A squeak of rubber on tile made him revise his estimate. Athletic shoes made that sound on nice clean floors. Six then. He felt a little sick. Half a dozen, all for him, and once upon a time that wouldn't have been enough.

Sands controlled a shiver and brought his cigarette to his mouth as the man in the athletic shoes sat down opposite him.

He definitely should have taken a taxi to the airport in Cancún and hopped a flight to anywhere. Anywhere but here, sitting across a table from the only guy he knew who always wore those damn shoes, along with that hounds-tooth-checked golfing cap. The sonovabitch had even worn it in the jungle and when it got wet it reeked worse than a wet sheep.

"Hey there, Jeffy," Heller said amiably.

"Long time no see, Abe," Sands replied, lacing his words with bitter irony. Not long enough, he didn't say. He knew Heller heard it anyway.

"Well, that's the way it goes in our line of work."

Sands inhaled another lung full of smoke. "Golly, it pains me to admit it, but I didn't miss you a bit."

"So what brings you down to Chiapas?"

He shrugged. "A car."

One of Heller's men had sidled up next to Sands. He smelled like garlic chorizo and Old Spice and sweat. Sands didn't betray by a twitch that he was aware of him.

"A car?" Heller had a loud laugh, a little nasal. He slapped his thigh with an audible sound. "You're a card, Jeff."

"Yeah, a regular joker in the deck."

Heller's voice went hard and serious, "Well, Jeffy, that's problem, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"We just can't afford a wild card like you floating around, maybe messing things up."

Sands tapped ash into the ashtray he'd set into a memorized place when he sat down. "I don't suppose that if I assured you I have no interest in whatever you've got going with Bautista …?" He waited, then forced a smile. "No?"

"No."

"That's really too bad," Sands said. He fired once at Heller and twisted sideways to put a round through the belly of the man next to him. He heard Heller's chair go out from under him, and a yell. Then hard hands were tearing at him, grabbing his shoulder, and he emptied the rest of the clip into whoever was closest to him.

"Don't kill him!" he heard Heller shout. That pissed Sands off and he fought harder, using every dirty trick he'd ever known, including many that Heller had taught him. The crack of a nose against the heel of his hand preceded the satisfying push-slide of bone and broken cartilage shoving straight into some thug's brain. He was taking punishment too, though, and overwhelmed by sheer weight.

Within minutes, he was pinned down.

His sunglasses were gone and he squeezed his eyelids shut out of habit. Hands wrapped around his wrists, a heavy - maybe dead - body weighed down his legs, and a knee was pressed into his chest so that he couldn't breathe.

He heaved against his captors, but it was useless.

A hand brushed hair off his face. Sands froze.

"Open your eyes, Jeffy."

"Fuck off."

A rough finger and thumb jabbed into his eyesocket and peeled the lid open. One of the men holding his arms cursed. The hand left his face and Sands rolled his face away.

"My, my, my," Heller said. "Would you look at that."

~*~

Fideo intercepted El and Lorenzo before they could walk back into the hotel. He flattened his palm against El's chest and shook his head. El stopped in his tracks.

He looked past Fideo's shoulder and his eyes narrowed. An ambulance was parked in front of the hotel, along with three marked police cars, the sun gleaming painfully bright off polished hoods and roofs and glass.

He looked for a shadow and found only the unforgiving brightness.

His eyes returned to Fideo's set face. A hollow opened inside his chest.

"Sands?"

Fideo glanced back. The smoked-glass hotel doors opened and two uniformed technicians pushed out a gurney with a black body bag on it. Another followed, carrying another body. El ignored the glare and watched as the gurneys were loaded into the ambulance. No one was in any hurry. The technicians strolled back inside and brought out another victim in few minutes.

El rasped out a single word.

_"Meurte?"_

Lorenzo grabbed his arm. El didn't realized he'd taken a step forward until he felt Fideo pushing him back.

"Gone," Fideo said. He was still sober, despite the hour. He didn't even smell of tequila.

"I should have - "

"Gone," Fideo repeated. "I couldn't find the gringo, just those three - " he nod toward the ambulance departing with the bodies, "- and these." He pulled Sands' sunglasses from inside his jacket and offered them. "He isn't dead or they would have left him too."

El folded his fingers around the plastic.

"Who took him?" he managed to say.

Fideo shrugged.

El stared at the hotel.

"We didn't see anyone go into the estate when we were watching," Lorenzo said. El jerked, remembering his presence.

He wiped his hand over his face.

"El - "

"We need to get our things and get to a different hotel," he said. Depending on who had taken Sands, they might know about El or not. If they did, they would be back. He carefully tucked the sunglasses inside his jacket.

Fideo pulled his flask out of his jacket and sipped it. Furious, El snatched it out of his hand and dashed it into the gutter.

"What - why?" Fideo exclaimed.

_"Where were you?"_ El demanded.

Fideo straightened up and glared back. _"You think he wanted me there, watching him for you?"_

"No," El said. He knew Sands wouldn't have tolerated that. He hadn't even suggested it. But he hadn't anticipated anyone going after Sands, either. He was an idiot, he thought tiredly. He never learned. They always struck at the people he lo - cared for first. _Díos_, he didn't think he could endure losing someone because of who he was again.

He closed his eyes. Sands wasn't like anyone else, though. Sands was a survivor, wasn't he? Just like El was … Something inside made them endure, when giving up seemed so much more appealing.

Fideo nodded, stooped and picked up the miniature silver flash. He checked it for damage and put it away.

"We start with Bautista's estate," he said. "If Anna or Sands is there, we finish it. If they aren't, we find them."

~*~

He really wasn't enjoying this, Sands admitted to himself.

Heller's men - his remaining men - had hefted him onto his feet and dragged him out of the hotel bar after they realized he was blind. Despite the fact that he'd taken out three of them and grazed Heller, once they saw that, they didn't consider him much of a threat.

The problem was, that by then, Sands wasn't. The ape that had been kneeling on his chest had stayed there, making it impossible to catch enough air to keep his head clear. There was no creeping grey mist at the edge of his vision, no black spots, just a steady disconnection in his thoughts. He lost time like dropped stitches in his consciousness.

His lungs were still fighting to pull in enough air when they tossed him into the back of an SUV. He landed on his back and realized that his hands were bound behind him as he fell on them and pain seared up his arms.

He cursed and fought the bindings until someone slammed his head against the side of the SUV and he passed out again.

He came to sitting in a chair, feet tied to the legs, hands still tied behind him and now drawn around the back of the chair. His shoulders hurt fiercely, along with the hellish throb in his head. He blinked uselessly, just once, before he mastered the old reflex.

A hand jostled his shoulder and he moaned despite himself

"Up and at 'em, Jeffy," came Heller's loathed voice.

He really hadn't missed the man. His old partner. Sands lifted his head and faked a smile. A crust of blood cracked open on his split lip. He licked the blood away unselfconsciously.

"You can quit shaking me, I'm not a martini," he said.

"Pedro," another voice commanded. Sands cocked his head.

"Oh, sorry, didn't see you there," he said. "I'm Sands."

"_Sí_, I know." This was followed by an amused chuckle.

A smooth voice, Mexican accent subtly touched with English, the voice of a man confident in himself and his position.

"You must be _Señor_ Bautista," Sands declared.

He heard the faint surprise in the answer. _ "Sí."_

"Well, you know, I'd offer to shake hands with you, but I'm a little tied up."

"That won't be necessary - "

"Shut up, Jeffy," Heller interrupted and kicked Sands' knee. Agony streaked through him and he gritted back a scream. Good Christ, he didn't need a broken knee to go with whole blind thing. Wasn't he fucking crippled enough? He was going to kill that sonovobitch, he swore. He was going to find a way and pull the trigger on Heller someday.

_"Enough, Señor Heller,"_ Bautista said.

"Hey, the little shit's my colleague - " Heller protested.

"Colleague," Sands echoed with a snort of a laughter. "Golly, is that what you call it, Abe? Well, I think you should know, _Señor_ Bautista, that I'm not his colleague, as I am unofficially retired thanks to my little 'disability'."

"Then the CIA won't be looking for you," Bautista said smoothly.

In other words, there was no reason to keep him alive.

Sands shrugged and regretted it, as his shoulders began aching again. It wasn't like Heller hadn't already informed Bautista.

"I just wanted to make it clear that I have nothing against you," he went on blithely. "Whatever my old friend Abe has said, I'm not a threat. My Christ, look at me, what could a blind man do, anyway?"

"Besides kill four of my men?" Bautista asked dryly.

Sands felt his eyebrows rise. "Four?" he asked. "Gosh. Sorry about that. I could have sworn I only got three, since Abe here's still on his feet."

"Fuckwad," Heller muttered.

"Hey, I did hit you, right?"

"Right along the rib, Jeffy, and you are going to fucking pay, asshole."

"Yeah, yeah, that's what they all say," Sands said perkily.

"You are an interesting man, _Señor_ Sands," Bautista remarked. He walked over and stood in front of Sands.

"Oh, you have no idea."

"I do not believe a man such as you, a man with ties to your government and my associate _Señor_ Heller, a man with such a clever wit, arrived here by coincidence," Bautista mused. He set two fingers under Sands' chin and lifted his face.

Sands forced himself to breath steadily.

"Open your eyes."

"I'd really rather not."

"As you like," Bautista said. He withdrew his hand. Sands kept his face tipped up. "A shame, really."

"I kind of feel the same way."

Bautista laughed. "You still have your _cojones_."

"Balls of brass," Heller said in sour voice. "Just let me get on with it. I'll find out why he's in Chiapas and who is with him."

"Very well. Maria Teresa and I have an engagement this evening," Bautista mentioned. He moved away from Sands. "The Mayor is holding a dinner party for the new bishop." His footsteps stopped. "Find out who he is working for if it isn't your agency, _Señor_ Heller. I do not like surprises."

"No problem, me and Jeffy here, we understand each other."

Shit.

Sands understood Heller all right. Heller was the man he'd learned every bad habit, every corrupt trick from; the one who had first pointed out the line to him and then yanked him right over it. Heller was an amoral, happy-go-lucky killer who wanted money and power. Working for the Agency was just a easy way to get away with whatever he wanted to do to get those things. He'd made it seem like the only way to operate.

Sands shook his head.

When had he started thinking Heller was one of the bad guys? No. When had he started thinking he wasn't just like Heller? When they'd worked together in Morocco, it had been every man for himself. He'd waltzed away from that op the winner and left Heller with the clean-up without a qualm. Heller would have done the same. That's what he'd taught Sands and Sands hadn't seen anything to prove him wrong until El scooped him off the street in Culiacan.

That kid in Culiacan had been too young to understand that everyone screwed you over if you didn't get yours in first. Sands didn't know if he'd ever been that innocent. Even upright, honorable Agent Ramirez had walked away from him. Ajedrez had fucked him over, the Agency had hung him out to dry, and he'd had no one to blame but himself. There had been something almost like satisfaction in dying like that: he'd been right all along. Then El Saint Fucking Mariachi had saved Sands' ass for no damn reason at all and permanently screwed his version of the universe.

"Do not get too zealous," Bautista instructed.

"That depends on Jeffy," Heller said. Sands heard the anticipation in his voice. Okay, it was going to be bad. It was going to hurt. But what was Heller going to do, threaten to put his eyes out? He could take it. He wouldn't tell Heller a damn thing.

"Blanca will join you."

"What?"

Sands began laughing. "Oh, gosh, I don't think _Señor_ Bautista trusts you, Abe. He wants to make sure whatever I say, he gets to hear about it all." He tipped his head and smiled. "Well, am I right?"

Bautista sighed.

"I am. I knew it."

"I'd forgotten what an annoying shit you are, Jeffy," Heller snapped.

_"I would send you Chucho,"_ Bautista said, voice fading as he walked away, _"but he can be too enthusiastic. Though he would like this one. Such a mouth, no?"_

Raspy laughter was Heller's first response. Then he inquired, "Where _is _Chucho?"

_"The girl died. I told him to dispose of the body discreetly. I don't want Maria Teresa upset tonight. Then he's going to Tijuana. Our contacts have spotted your Agent Ramirez and the reporter there." _

Sands tried to put what he'd heard together. He was perfectly happy to hear he wouldn't have Heller and Chucho both working him over. The girl he didn't know, but he assumed that would be Lorenzo's Anna. El would be angry over that … Why the hell was Bautista sending his right hand after Ramirez, though? He hated it when he didn't know all the players. Who was the reporter?

The first blow surprised Sands. He couldn't have done anything if he had expected it, anyway. Heller's fist snapped his head to the side. The next hit sent the chair over on its side.

He spat some more blood on the floor. Sands thought they must be in a basement somewhere. The floor felt cool where he was lying on it.

He managed to spit blood at Heller as the chair was righted.

"You know, Jeffy, I had a fuck of a time explaining to those Polosario bastards in Tétouan what happened to their money and their guns ," Heller remarked. "Thought they were going to cut off my balls and feed 'em to me."

Stupid ragheads, Sands thought, couldn't even count on them to take out the greedy infidel pig that double-crossed them. Heller _had_ double-crossed them. The arms deal had been just so much smoke. He'd meant to make off with their money, only Sands had got to it first. He'd figured Heller was dead meat when their Polosario contacts found out, which hadn't bothered him a bit. Too bad he'd been wrong.

Heller was going to make him pay for that.

"Yes sirree, I'm going to have some fun here," Heller said. "You're smart, Jeffy, smart enough to screw me over. But you missed one lesson."

"Oh, what was that?" Sands asked sarcastically. "How to sell out?"

Another blow rocked Sands. His teeth cut into his cheek. Then a fist slammed into his gut and he couldn't breathe.

"No one screws Abe Heller."

Sands realized Heller hadn't asked him a single question yet.

He revised his estimate. This was going to be really bad.

He'd stay alert for any chance to get himself out of this fix, but the odds were he wasn't going anywhere.

Heller hit him again.

~*~

Lorenzo threw the file at the chipped plaster wall. "We're no closer to finding Anna than before!" he yelled as the papers fluttered to the floor.

"Lori -" Fideo protested. He was sprawled across the rickety bed that almost filled the cheap hotel room they'd moved to after Sands shot up the hotel bar and disappeared. His striped jacket was balled up under his head in place of a pillow.

El looked up from the files he'd been reading through obsessively. He had the papers spread out on the floor all around him, since there was no chair or table.

He set his steady gaze on Lorenzo and waited, though his body was pulled wire-tight with tension. He thought Sands was inside the Bautista estate and he ached to do something about it, but the three of them weren't enough to take on an armed camp. In his younger days, he would have done it. He'd done crazier things and even walked away alive. But it wouldn't be worth surviving if he didn't get Sands and Lorenzo's Anna out alive too.

They needed a plan.

Sands would be proud of him. He was thinking, trying to find something in the information Quin had provided, that would show him what to do. He wasn't letting himself think of what might be happening to Sands.

Lorenzo wasn't helping, though, with his fuming and pacing.

"Enough," El said.

Lorenzo turned around and glared at him. "You care more about that stupid gringo than - "

"I brought him here," El said. Flat. All that needed to be said fit into the four words.

Lorenzo opened his mouth, then closed it. The sulky expression eased off and his anger eased up, leaving only worry.

Fideo swung himself off the bed. He picked up a tequila bottle and offered it to Lorenzo. "Here. Drink some."

"It's shit," Lorenzo protested, but he accepted the bottle and swallowed some. His Adam's apple worked.

Fideo shrugged and began searching his rumpled jacket for his cigarettes. "I know, but after a while you stop noticing." He found a pack and lit up.

The lighter in his hand jerked and almost touched flame to one of Fideo's curls as someone knocked on their door.

El flowed to his feet, guns dropping out of his sleeves into his hands. His eyes narrowed. He lifted his chin at Fideo, then inclined his head toward the door as the sharp, light taps began again.

Lorenzo set the tequila bottle on the small night table next to the bed and drew a silenced pistol from the holster at the small of his back. His expression was hard as stone.

Fideo went to the door. He patted his hip and didn't find his gun. Lorenzo found it lying on the bed and tossed it to him silently. Holding the gun ready, Fideo opened the door a crack.

A woman in her late twenties stood in the hallway. Fideo inspected her silently. Finally, he opened the door wider and gestured with his gun for her to enter.

She stepped inside and took in El and Lorenzo, both armed and ready. She held out her hands to show they were empty. Her tanned arms were bare too except for a silver and turquoise bracelet. Her sleeveless red T-shirt was tucked into a pair of tight khaki pants she wore with a pair of low boots.

Lorenzo put up his gun. El didn't. A spark of respect flashed in her brown eyes.

"You recognize her, Lori?" Fideo asked. He was leaning against the wall, but like El he was still ready. _"From the bar."_

El recognized her. The girl in the yellow dress. Two big hoop earrings glinted, the only thing about her that was the same.

_"You're the storyteller,_" she said, glancing back at Fideo.

"What are you here for?" El asked.

She shrugged fluidly.

_"El Mariachi."_

Her eyes were on El. He stared back, stone hard.

"What are you here for?" he asked again.

_"You're looking for Chucho,"_ she said. _"He's looking for you. He wants to be you - the most famous killer in Mexico."_

El grimaced.

"And you're what? His agent?" Fideo sneered.

_"Who the hell are you?_" Lorenzo demanded on the heels of Fideo's words.

"Call me Araña."

_"La Araña,_" El said.

Her eyes were like dark, cold iron.

El gave her a slow nod of recognition. Not that they'd met, but he recognized the only name the Zapatistas' fiercest enforcer used, according to Quin's files. There were stories that the woman had lost everything, family and home, to government soldiers. Others that she had been raped and left for dead. None of the information was concrete. All of it agreed, though, that she lived for revenge and killed for the cause. El Mariachi could respect that.

_"I need you to kill a man."_

How many times was he going to hear those words? His first sight of Sands, the American had smiled at him and offered his devil's bargain with those words.

Lorenzo snorted, a disgusted sound. "He's not an assassin."

"Why?"

La Araña smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Because Esteban Bautista struck a deal with our people to assume control of Chiapas and the oil reserves, but he means to double-cross us. He's working with the Americans, too."

Lorenzo shrugged and stalked over to the wall where he'd thrown the file. He began shuffling the papers back together. "Why should we care?"

She shifted her weight, standing with one hip cocked, her hand resting there. _ "I'm sure you don't. You're too busy fucking for hire and playing guitars to care about your people or your country."_

_"What the hell do you know - !"_

Lorenzo started to lunge toward her. El snapped one arm out in front his chest. "No."

She didn't flinch. Her smile didn't slip.

"What are you offering?"

"Access to the estate. They have your gringo there."

El kept his arm up, blocking Lorenzo like a steel bar. "Why can't you do it yourself?"

La Araña laughed. _"Because then they'd all realize I'm more than Cochi's whore. El Mariachi … everyone knows he hunts the cartels. Everyone's heard he's hunting Chucho and Chucho is Bautista's creature."_

"So the Zapatistas take over without a war with the Bautista cartel," Fideo said.

She nodded.

Lorenzo took a step back.

He said hoarsely, "Anna?"

_"The girl from Cancún?" _

_"Sí." _

La Araña hesitated, her gaze moving to El's, then said, _"She is dead."_

"No!"

El tossed one gun on the bed, where a stripe of sunlight made the faded pattern of red and brown stripes almost glow, and grasped Lorenzo's shoulder, pulling him close.

"No," Lorenzo repeated.

"Chucho?" Fideo asked softly.

"Chucho."

Lorenzo tore himself away from El. His face was set, despite the tears sliding down his cheeks. _"I want him dead,"_ he snarled. _ "I want him to die looking in my eyes. I'm going to kill him."_

"Where is she?" El asked. He ignored Lorenzo ranting and pacing behind him.

La Araña looked at Lorenzo dubiously. "You don't want him to hear."

El narrowed his eyes. She licked her lips, the first thing she'd done that betrayed any nerves. With a jerk of his head toward Lorenzo, El directed Fideo to look out for him. He slipped one gun up his sleeve and retrieved the other from the bed, tucking it away too. Fideo brushed past him and began nodding in a agreement with Lorenzo. El followed La Araña out the door into the shadowy hall, while Fideo dealt with Lorenzo.

"Tell me," he commanded.

She leaned back against the wall and swallowed hard. In the half light, only the whites of her eyes shone clearly, a flash that dimmed as she dipped her eyelids closed.

"Pigs."

He didn't understand.

She opened her eyes and met El's gaze.

"Pigs," she said again. "Chucho took the body away and fed it to the pigs at a farm that doubles as one of Bautista's safehouses. He's used it before. It's neat. There are no bodies to show up. Just don't eat the pork at La Mariposa."

El stumbled back against the peeling papered wall, sickened. He tasted bile as he thought of the hungry swine grunting and pushing until they'd torn what was left of Anna Serrano to pieces and consumed them.

_"Madre de Díos."_

"Chucho's in Tijuana now," La Araña said. She pulled a folded piece of yellow paper from her pocket and offered it to El. "If you don't want your gringo friend to end up like the girl, you'll be here tomorrow at noon."

El looked at the paper suspiciously.

"Just make sure someone sees you and lives to tell about it," she added.

He still didn't take the paper.

"Or you can go after Chucho. The blind man, he is a hard one too, maybe he'll hold out another few days. Or _Señor_ Heller will kill him. If he's lucky."

A rough, whispered word slipped out. "Lucky?"

"Bautista's bitch talks about what they're doing to him."

El tightened his hand into a fist. Sands …

"Why tomorrow?"

La Araña stepped away from the wall, straightening her shoulders. Her chin came up. She looked nothing like the cheap coke whore he'd seen in the bar. El wondered at her, at how she'd learned to play a role. But not at why she was willing to live it.

_"Today the arms shipment Bautista promised us was delivered, paid for with money made because our people protected his operation. Tomorrow, we revolt and take over the government and the oil fields. If Bautista is alive after that, he will betray us." _

He could almost see how it all fitted together, each side of the triangle always intending to betray the others, each one thinking the second didn't know about the third. Sands would have loved it.

"_That is the CIA's plan, the one this Heller brought to him months ago." _

El crossed his arms and indicated that he was still listening.

_"He isn't like the other cartel leaders, he has contacts within the government. Troops will be sent in to put down the 'revolt'."_ La Araña's voice hardened into ice. _"El Presidente will believe Bautista has saved Chiapas from the terrible rebels and give him control."_

"The President is a good man - "

"He is a fool," she snapped. "Good? Perhaps. That means nothing. He will not even realize what has happened here until Bautista's power base is too strong to overthrow. If he does … a convenient death can always be bought."

El flinched.

"Can't it?"

_'Oh, no, no, no, the President will be killed. Because he's that piece of good pork that needs to get balanced out.' _ Sands' words. The CIA's plan. If he hadn't heard El Presidente speak, El would have pulled the trigger himself. It was true; death was easily bought. It was cheap. El had been willing to sell it for nothing but revenge.

La Araña was offering him more than that. Pull the trigger … and get Sands back.

He snatched the paper from her fingers.

"We're on."

~*~

"Do you know what I'm going to do to you, Jeffy?"

Heller pressed the lit cigarette into the tender skin inside Sands' elbow, lingering until the smell of burning flesh signaled that the skin was gone. Sands jerked into wakefulness again, straining rigidly against the ropes binding him in place.

"Did you hear me, Jeffy?"

His mouth was so dry he couldn't do more than whisper.

"Fuck off ...."

"Good, good, you're listening," Heller said. His breath touched Sands' face, smelling of coffee and sausage and the spearmint gum Heller chewed sometimes. Sands' might have thrown up right in his face, if there had been anything left in him but bile. As it was, he couldn't even spit.

His mind had been drifting despite Heller's interrogation techniques. He remembered color. He thought he did. Maybe it was only the idea of color he remembered, now that he couldn't experience it.

_Red now … red was …_

The slap wasn't that hard, just enough to focus him again.

"Keep listening, Jeffy."

Heller twined his fingers in Sands' hair and jerked his head back. "I'm going to take my time," he said. "I'm going to start with you feet. Lots of bones in your feet, Jeffy. I'm going to break them all. Then I'm going to do your knees."

The cold that slid through Sands' veins had nothing to do with the pain that would come. He'd thought after being blinded that he had nothing more to fear. He was already crippled. Now he understood there were degrees of mutilation, degrees of injury and disability that he hadn't plumbed.

"Then I'm going to do your hands, Jeffy. When I'm all done, a couple of Ping-Pong paddles will be more use than your hands. Are you getting the picture, pal?" Heller stopped and laughed. "That's right. No pictures for Jeffy, sweet Sonia Barillo made sure of that, didn't she?"

Sands jerked in the chair. The ropes cut deep into his wrists, fresh blood dripping down his numb fingers. He didn't feel it.

"Sonia Barillo," Heller said thoughtfully. "That was a hot piece of ass you were dipping your wick in, Jeffy. 'Course you didn't know who she really was, did you?"

Sands felt something, something like the earth dropping out from beneath his feet, like freefall.

"Background check on Agent Ajedrez came back clean as a whistle, didn't it?" Heller mused.

_Oh, my Christ._

"Veronica figured the Barillos would get rid of you for us, but you're just like a fucking cockroach, aren't you, Jeffy?"

_Ajedrez. They knew about Ajedrez._

"Nothing to say, pal? That's okay, I'm having fun here anyway."

_I never saw it_.

The irony followed him into unconsciousness much, much later.

~*~

Esteban Bautista watched Blanca leave the bed and walk away, admiring the tangled but shining blonde hair, the sunburst tattooed between her shoulder blades and the twin dimples above her ass. She moved with the sleek muscled ease of a feline, in bed and out.

She returned, unconcerned by her nudity, with two crystal tumblers in hand. Water in one and good Scotch in the other that she handed to him. A fine gloss of sweat made her skin gleam like white marble. She was a genuine blonde, as pale below as above.

He sipped the Scotch.

_"Tell me, what has Heller found out from this Sands?"_

Blanca grimaced and slipped on the brightly flowered silk robe tossed over a chaise lounge.

"Nothing. He isn't even trying."

She pulled her hair free of the collar and belted the robe. Distaste marked her expression.

_"What?"_

Blanca picked up her tumbler and sipped the water, then set the heavy crystal down on a side table. She walked back over to the bed and knelt on it.

"He's just torturing him. Promising to leave him alive, but completely crippled." She shrugged, a ripple of silk and muscle that made Esteban's groin tighten all over again. "It's personal between those two. Heller doesn't care about what Sands knows, just breaking him."

"Has he?"

"Not yet." Blanca quirked her lips into something that approximated a smile, but wasn't. She reached forward and ran her hand down Esteban's chest. "I think we should keep him alive."

Esteban caught her hand and nipped her finger tips. Blanca pulled free and sat back on her heels. The robe gaped open, wanting to slip off her shoulder. He wanted to pull it off her, drive into her, until she was more than just disheveled on the outside, until the ice inside her melted.

"Why?" he asked curiously.

"We can't rely on Heller. He betrayed this Sands. He'll betray you, Esteban. You know that," she answered.

_"Sí, but I needed the CIA's cooperation."_

She nodded.

"Sands was CIA too. He probably knows as much as Heller," she said, "and he may be smart and tough, but he's still blind. We could control him."

"Better than Heller."

He considered it. The blind man might be an asset. Under the circumstances, it might be useful to keep him. He could never be the threat Heller was. Heller had always been slated for disposal, of course. With the arms deal concluded and the Zapatistas in place, it was time.

He let himself smile.

_"Sí. Take care of it,_" he said. _"Today."_

"And Sands?"

He shrugged.

"_Offer him a job, if he's still alive. You're right, he could be useful."_

~*~

Heller had always had a sixth sense for danger. He'd always listened to it. That's why he was still alive.

Today was the day of the revolt and the air felt heavy with sticky heat and tension already.

He'd checked in with Veronica on the phone and received her okay to take Sands out. It was a good time to do it. That way the body could be found and shipped back to the States. If Sands had any family that gave a damn, they wouldn't be asking questions. His death could be blamed on the Zapatistas.

He was heading for his car when all his inner alarms went off.

Heller didn't stop to analyze what was happening. He ducked for cover, grabbing for his own gun. The first bullet should have caught him in the chest. Instead a shard of pulverized brick ricocheted from the wall he'd been standing in front of a moment before. As he dodged into a doorway, he caught a glimpse of blond hair in the sun.

"Sonovabitch!"

Bautista had got the jump on him, the canny bastard. That was Blanca.

Well, that put a different spin on things. Sands would have to wait. Bautista might take care of the little shit anyway, but somehow, Heller knew the cocky bastard would slick his way out some way. They'd run into each other again. Meanwhile, it was time for Abe Heller to get the hell out of Dodge. Sands was a fine example of just what could happen to a man the cartels had turned on.

Heller meant to keep all his important parts.

He pegged a couple of shots toward where he'd seen Blanca, jerked the door behind him open, and dashed inside.

Good thing he was always prepared for the sugar to turn to shit. Another bullet shattered the glass window behind him.

He ran.

~*~

"Heller got away," Blanca said.

The sound of gunfire, of mortars and rockets, even the deeper reports of artillery thundered from town. It had been expected. The gunfire just outside the gates of the estate, or even within it already, hadn't. Esteban shook his head at his own naïveté. He had expected the CIA to betray their agreement. Why hadn't he anticipated the Zapatistas would turn on him?

He heard a shotgun fired twice down stairs. Rapid automatic fire and handguns mixed with the bark of a simple hunting rifle and the distinctive clatter of Uzis.

"Heller doesn't matter now," he said. He headed for his safe.

"Go get Maria Teresa and meet me at the helicopter pad. We will evacuate and regroup."

He tapped in the security code, not bothering to hide it from Blanca. It would be a moot point, since this place and this safe would be abandoned after today.

"Go!" he commanded.

The blond woman whirled and headed for his wife's wing of the house. Esteban pulled large, accordion-style case from the bottom of the safe and began loading it with stacks of money and Maria Teresa's jewels. When it would hold no more, he stuffed a few more packets of notes into his pockets, added the mini-disks and keys that would let him access his accounts and business dealings from anywhere, and headed for the rooftop helipad where his pilot had the Bell helicopter ready.

He glanced at the slim watch on his wrist and noted the time. He would give Blanca and Maria Teresa five minutes. Less, if the fighting reached the roof.

~*~

Lorenzo ran ahead of them, Fideo loping after him, trying to watch his friend's back and his own at the same time.

El calmly shot one of Bautista's soldiers and turned to the woman beside him. He leveled the sawed off shotgun over her shoulder and shot another, then broke it open and knocked the empty casings out. She flinched a little at the loud report next to her ear.

_"Warn me next time, I'll duck,"_ she said.

El looked at her under his brows. "_There won't be a next time,_" he said darkly. He fished two shells from his belt and fed them into the shotgun, then aimed it at her chest.

"Where is Sands?"

La Araña looked slightly taken aback, but rallied. "Bautista first."

"Sands."

"Downstairs - "

The rattle of an Uzi close by interrupted her. They both spun as Fideo and Lorenzo's guns joined in. Then Fideo shouted and El knew something was wrong. He sprinted down a wide hall decorated with bronze statuary and into what must have been a conservatory.

A look told him too much.

Fideo was on the floor, cradling Lorenzo's limp body. One hand was threaded into Lorenzo's blood soaked hair, holding up his head. A few feet away, a woman with long dark hair sprawled face down. Blood pooled around her torso and spread from the stained hole an exiting bullet had torn through her back. A machine pistol was still clutched in one of her manicured hands.

"Lori, Lori, ah, Lori," Fideo murmured.

The rest of the room was empty.

El walked in with measured steps, chains chiming with each one. He crouched, one knee bent, one on the bloody tile, and set his hand against Lorenzo's cheek. He bent his head. Under his fingers, Lorenzo was still warm, stubble rasping against El's palm, sticky with blood. He slid his hand down Lorenzo's throat, trying to find a pulse that he knew wasn't there.

Nothing.

Behind them, La Araña paced into the room. She paused beside them briefly, still cradling a AK-47 in the crook of her arm, and looked down. El caught her eye, but no emotion showed. Her look was one of acknowledgement, not compassion.

She walked on to the dead woman and rolled her over to look at her face.

"Maria Teresa," La Araña said.

"Bautista's wife," El said.

_"Sí."_

"What happened?" he asked Fideo.

"Lori went in first," Fideo said simply. "There were two women. He wouldn't shoot a woman. She - " he nodded toward the corpse of Maria Teresa, " - shot him once. I came in and shot her. The other woman, the blonde, emptied a clip into Lori. "

The bone-rattling vibration of a helicopter taking off echoed down from the roof. La Araña lifted her eyes and cursed.

"Bautista!"

She ran to the glass doors and shoved them open, bolting out onto the terrace. She lifted the AK-47 to her shoulder and emptied it skyward, toward the departing helicopter.

El didn't care.

He rested his bloody hand on Fideo's shoulder and squeezed.

"I have to find Sands."

Fideo looked up. His eyes were wet, narrowed against the tears, and his mouth quivered before he spoke. "I know."

El squeezed again. "Can you get him out of here?"

"Sí."

"We'll bury himself someplace where we can remember him," El promised and got to his feet.

There was still fighting throughout the estate between the Zapatista rebels and the cartel soldiers. He didn't care. Downstairs. He went, killing anyone who tried to interfere.

~*~

The hands on his bonds weren't a man's. The perfume getting up his nose sure as hell didn't belong on a guy either. Damned nice, Sands thought groggily. Except for the curl of gun smoke threaded through it. That belonged on El …

The slap that came next wasn't as pleasant.

"What the hell?" he croaked.

Whoever she was, she was strong, dragging him to his feet.

"Come on!"

"Yeah, right, why the hell should I -"

The hot muzzle of a gun, still reeking of cordite from being fired recently was jammed up under his chin.

Sands held out his just freed hands and waved them a little. "Okay, okay, who am I to look a gift rescue in the mouth - "

"Shut up, Sands," she hissed. A hand latched on to his wrist, almost making him cry out in pain from the raw weals there, and jerked. "The only reason you're alive is to help me find Heller. _Señor_ Bautista's wife is dead, but he may forgive me if I get Heller for him. As long as you help me do do that, I'll keep you alive."

He stumbled after her, jerked along like dog on a leash. Without warning they were going up a set of stairs. Sands stumbled and almost fell, catching at the wall with his free hand. Gunfire sounded close and near, the echoes disorienting him. He kept up, because he knew this woman would kill him if he didn't.

Besides, he had_ no_ objections to killing Abe Heller. It sounded like the best idea of all time to him.

At least he had a hell of better chance of getting himself out of this alive than he had had five minutes ago.

"So who's doing the shooting?" he gasped out.

"Zapatistas."

He didn't have the breath to laugh.

Suddenly, he was knocked into the wall by her shoulder. She began firing at someone. The characteristic sound told him the gun she'd threatened him with before was an Uzi. She was good with it, firing three shot bursts, not just holding down the trigger and hosing things until the clip ran out.

Someone screamed

A thud followed.

His rescuer grabbed his hand this time. "Come on."

Sands followed.

They made it to the garage without any more shooting. Sands guessed it was a garage. Concrete under his feet, the echoing feel of a large and undivided space, the smell of gasoline, oil, and rubber in the air reminded him of every garage he'd ever been in.

He stumbled to a stop as she scoped out the room. His breath sawed in and out. Everything hurt, every bruise, burn, and break. It felt like his ribs were ready to run through his lungs.

"Stay here," she told him.

Well, where the fuck was he going to go anyway? As soon as Sands heard her steps move away, though, he started groping around. Six steps from the wall, he tripped over something soft. He dropped to his knees, one hand landing on bloody cloth stretched over still warm flesh.

"Yeech," he muttered. Messy, and he didn't have his gloves on. "Oh, well, needs must when the devil drives." He patted over the corpse professionally, searching for anything useful.

His fingers found a wallet first. He riffled through it and pocketed the money, though he didn't have a clue what the denominations were. Waste not, want not.

"You've come a long way, Sheldon," he muttered to himself. "Top-notch CIA operative to blind corpse-robber."

He ran his hand around the man's belt and grinned. Just what he'd been hoping for. He pulled the gun out of the holster and checked that it was loaded.

Safety on, it went into the waistband of his pants at the small of his back, with his shirt-tail pulled out of it. A last pat-down yielded a small knife, which he tucked into his pocket.

A gunshot jolted his attention back to his present predicament. Did he try to take out his little 'rescuer' or go along with her until a more opportune moment?

He staggered back to his feet and backwards into a wall, just leaning there, as he heard quick steps approaching. The woman, he identified. He'd stay with her a little longer.

"Sands," she said, "where would Heller go?"

"Tijuana," he said immediately. He had no idea, really, but Chucho was supposed to be there. Where Chucho was, El would surely show up eventually.

"We're going to Tijuana, then."

"Okay by me, sugarbutt," he managed to say as she dragged him off and into another SUV.

~*~

El stared at the chair lying on its side in the otherwise empty room. Pieces of bloody rope were still knotted to the back and legs. It was the only sign that Sands had been there.

He slammed the palm of his hand against the door jamb.

Too late.

Gone.

There was no way to guess if Sands had escaped or been taken, no way to guess where he was.

_"Chingada tu madre!"_

El lingered a moment more, but there was nothing to see, no clue to follow. Sands was gone.

He turned away. Fideo would be wating with Lorenzo's body. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, feeling too tired to climb them. He forced himself forward.

They would bury Lorenzo.

And then he would find Chucho.

When Fideo saw him, all he said was, "Tijuana."

_ **La Ley de Fuga** _

The little house belonged to the cousin of a friend. He didn't even ask their names, just took the money Ramirez handed him, nodded, and walked away.

Reyes waited until Pablo was asleep in the second bedroom to begin asking questions again.

"So why here? Why Tijuana?"

Ramirez sat down on the worn-out couch and looked at her tiredly. Reyes was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that she'd bought in a market stall. She looked as weary as he felt.

"Sit down," he said.

She pursed her lips but complied.

Ramirez rubbed his face.

"I've kept us moving for the last week," he explained. "But that costs and sooner or later, we'll run out of money. We needed some place to lay low. I knew I could get a place here without anyone asking any questions."

Reyes rubbed her palms over her knees. "But what next?"

"I try to get a passport for the kid, then we cross the border. Once we're in the States, we can rely on the police, at least. We'll be safer."

"Oh." She looked around the plain, worn room vaguely. "How long will that take?"

Ramirez sighed.

"I don't know." He scrubbed at his face again, feeling the rasp of whiskers, and slumped back against the couch. "I've got to meet with a contact tomorrow. At a nightclub. Someplace called _Los Pescados Rojas_."

~*~

"Phone."

"What?" Blanca asked irritably.

Sands leaned back in the chair, wincing at the lingering pain in his ribs, along with all the other reminders of his sojourn at Heller's hands. He hadn't had much chance to do more than wash up in a gas station toilet since Blanca pulled him out of Bautista's estate. He counted himself lucky that Blanca had given him an opportunity for that much. She was an impatient woman. Not that he had any interest in dawdling along the way.

Presently, they were in a cheap Tijuana hotel room that reeked of mold and bug spray and beery vomit, not too far from the strip where the eighteen-year-olds came down from the States to to drink themselves unconscious. Sands wanted to throw himself on the creaky-springed bed and sleep for year, never mind the rats and cockroaches. Blanca wasn't about to wait that long, though, or even one night.

"Cell phone," he said patiently.

"Why?" He could hear the suspicion in her voice.

He smiled.

"You dragged me along to get a line on that _pendejo_ Heller, right, sugarbutt?" He cocked his head, then nodded to himself, not waiting for Blanca to reply. "So, I need to reach out and touch my little contacts and get the old low-down, _comprende_?"

"Fine," she snapped. A moment later she slapped sleek a little cell into his hand. He bared his teeth in her direction and tapped in the first number. Lucky thing he'd cultivated a quiet, useful little network in Tijuana, one he'd never bothered informing the Company about.

The phone at the other end picked up and Sands said, "Jonesy, guess who?" He held the phone away from his ear as the sometime bartender, pimp and smuggler began cursing and chuckled. "Cool your jets, Jonesy, I'm just in the market for some info. Just tell me if Heller's in town."

_"Sí_, Heller is here," Jonesy answered.

"You know where?"

"I can find out."

"Jonesy, you get me what I want, and I swear to you, I'll get you what you want."

"Five thousand."

"American? Jonesy, you've grown balls."

"Hey, I've got expenses."

"Let me put it this way, my friend," Sands told him. "Five is doable, but your information better be stellar or I will personally feed your eyeballs to the buzzards. Savvy?"

"Savvy," Jonesy replied.

"Then go forth, my son, and dig."

~*~

He slammed the coyote against the wall and shoved the muzzle of his sawed-off shotgun into the soft, loose flesh under the man's chin.

"I'm looking for a man called Chucho," El said hoarsely.

"Better tell him, amigo," Fideo added. He leaned against the wall and took a swallow from his tiny silver flask, watching the mouth of the alley. Tijuana was swarming with new cars and Americans from across the border.

"Tell me," El said. "Tell me and I won't blow your head off."

The sharp smell of urine flooded the close, fetid air of the alley.

"He's supposed to be at _Los Pescados Rojos!_"

El let him drop into the gutter and strode away. Fideo stood and looked down at the piss-sodden smuggler. He shook his head, pulled out his favorite revolver and put a bullet in each of the man's knees.

"You promised!" the coyote screamed and clutched at his legs.

El paused at the mouth of the alley, a black silhouette against the afternoon glare.

Fideo shrugged.

"He did. I didn't."

"Why? Why? I told you - "

"How many people have you left in the desert?" Fideo replaced the two shells he'd fired. "You take their money and leave them to die. You don't even get them across the border."

He tucked the gun away and walked after El.

~*~

At high noon, Blanca pulled the car up to the intersection where the skinny hippy in the blue Hawaiian shirt stood. The air conditioner was cranked to the limit and she was still sticking to the naugahyde seat covers, thanks to Sands' habit of keeping the window rolled down. The glare outside was brutal, despite her sunglasses. She had to admit that Sands had provided a dead-on description of the man. He was jittering in place, fingering his dreadlocked hair, and jerked like he'd been hit by a taser when she braked next to him.

"Is he there?" Sands asked in an undertone.

"Yes," she said.

"Wave."

"Wave?" she snapped.

"Yeah, hold up your hand and flap it, so that he strolls over to the car," Sands explained in a slow, falsely patient voice.

Blanca rolled her eyes, despite knowing he couldn't see it. The man was so irritating she was beginning to sympathize with Heller's antipathy for him, except that she knew it was a put-on. Sands was at her mercy. The smart-ass remarks were his only way of getting his balance back.

She lifted one hand off the steering wheel and beckoned Sands' contact over. He slipped his electric blue granny-glasses down his nose, pointed at himself, and mimed, _'Me?'_ She nodded.

"He's coming."

"Cool." Sands stretched in his seat. He didn't turn his face toward her or the approaching man. His clothes needed a wash and his hair was only finger-combed, but he'd managed to shave somehow and the sunglasses she'd found for him were silver mirrors. His expression was a perfect blank when his contact leaned against the passenger door of the car.

"Hello, Jonesy," he said.

"Sands, man, who is the mucho bella lady, hey?"

Blanca gave Jonesy a dead-eyed glare. The bony information broker flinched.

"Did you find out what I wanted?" Sands asked.

Jonesy flinched again at Sands' flat, indifferent tone.

"Yeah, yeah, sure, I found out," he said with a squeak in his voice.

"Where is he?"

"Hey, my money - "

Sands snapped his fingers and held his hand out to Blanca. Gritting her teeth, she dug the roll of greenbacks out of her purse and set it in his hand.

"The information first, Jonesy," Sands told him. He fingered the edges of the bills absently. "Now. Because I won't hesitate to drop you in the dirt right here and leave you to bleed out in the gutter like the cheap rat you are. "

"Shit, okay, okay, Heller's supposed to be at _Los Pescados Rojos_ later this afternoon to meet with some creepy cartel goon called Chucho - "

Sands smiled like sweet poison. "That's just dandy, Jonesy," he drawled and held up the five thousand. "That's just exactly the thing I wanted to hear, so you take this money and hit the road running, okay?"

Jonesy snatched the money out of Sands' hand.

"Jonesy," Blanca called as the man started to back away.

He paused and looked at her hopefully. She pulled a gun out of her straw bag and aimed at him. She smiled. "I know you're scared of Sands, but if you're lying, I'm going to come back and blow your balls off. Get it?"

"I ain't lying, lady, I swear!" he gabbled, holding up both hands while he backed away.

Blanca looked at him another moment, then popped the car into gear and peeled away from the curb.

Sands chuckled. "You know, sweetcheeks, I like your style, I really do."

Blanca snorted. "Like I care."

~*~

Curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought it back. Sands stepped into the nightclub at Blanca's side and smiled, his sharp ears catching the cadence of Abe Heller's voice. He let his hand drift away from Blanca's arm and reached for the gun in the back of his waistband. The nightclub echoed; it was almost empty, he could hear the click of his bootheels. Burnt gunpowder, booze and blood tainted the air inside.

Then everything went to hell.

Someone screamed like banshee, Blanca began cursing Chucho, and several other voices were raised.

"Sands?"

That was a voice he knew, but didn't recognize immediately. Not Heller.

"Well, well, well, lookie, the gang's all here," Heller laughed.

"Shit," the other voice muttered and then, hardening, addressing someone else, "Let her go, Chucho."

_Let who go? _ Another female scream was choked off.

High, manic laughter greeted that. "Not a chance, _cabrón_," the faintly nasal voice taunted.

Beside him, Blanca moved, barely stirring the air, smooth and silent. Sands heard the safety click off a gun and guessed she was drawing it.

"Hey, hey, Blanca, just chill, _chica_ \- "

"Shut your fucking mouth, Chucho," she snarled. "_Señor_ Bautista told me to off him."

"And you did such a good job," Heller taunted.

Things were falling apart fast.

Gunshot.

Sands threw himself away from Blanca as the gunfight began. He scrambled for some sort of cover, trying desperately to distinguish who was where by sound. He slammed an elbow against a chair, tripped against a table, and almost lost the gun in his hand before sliding down behind the bar. Several shots pegged his way sent a shower of glass down around him, liquor spilling everywhere. He could feel the cool alcohol bite soaking through his jeans.

He figured it was Heller shooting at him.

Okay, Sheldon, he told himself, trying to steadying his breathing so he could hear over the sound of his own heartbeat, time to figure out who's who.

Blanca was shooting at Heller, but there was at least one more person with a gun out there. Three guns. Too much noise. Chaos. Gunfire, shattering glass, ricochets. Thumps, thuds, shouts; it was almost more than Sands could process, all of it happening in a few heartbeats. Fuck. Okay, that was a nine-millimeter firing. And -

_Bang. Bang. Bang._

There. That was the steady rhythm of Heller firing at a measured pace, saving his ammunition. Sands remembered Heller's habits from the firing range and ops in North Africa. He tipped his head, trying to triangulate where the shots were coming from in relation to his own position, cursing Barillo and Ajedrez all over again.

Where the motherlovin' fuck was El, anyway? That was the infamous Chucho out there, Sands presumed. Shouldn't Mexico's premiere vigilante be on the scene? Christ, was he, Sands, corrupt, crippled ex-CIA agent, supposed to take on everything? He needed to concentrate on Heller.

Sands started counting gunshots.

When Heller hit the end of his clip, he bounced up and pegged a shot in the direction he figured Heller was. He heard two people curse and a woman who wasn't Blanca swearing furiously. His shot must have been too close.

Sands didn't give a damn.

"Fuck you, Sands!" Heller shouted.

"Ramirez!" Chucho shouted. "Call him off or the _chica_ bites it!"

_Ramirez?_

Sands' mouth quirked. That had been the voice he'd almost remembered. Which made Ramirez the third shooter, since he hadn't heard any gunfire from Chucho's direction.

He came out from behind the bar, fairly certain Blanca and Ramirez wouldn't shoot him, and positive Heller was out of ammo.

He moved carefully, desperately not wanting to stumble over a piece of broken furniture and make a fool of himself. The soft sounds of cloth and hard breathing located the woman and Chucho to his right. Heller was further over, he thought. He came to a stop.

"I just want to know one thing, Abe," he said conversationally. He kept the gun trained somewhere between Chucho and Heller instead of trying to zero in. "Did Veronica know you pulled the real background report on Ajedrez? Was she in on this deal with Bautista?"

Heller laughed.

"Hell, Jeffy, it was Ronnie-dear's idea."

Sands grimaced. Great. Now he had to go after the Ice Queen herself, Veronica Naismith, a woman who looked like a cross between Grace Kelly and Sharon Stone and used it because she had all the moral qualities of Catherine the Great.

"Does she know I'm alive?"

"Yeah."

"Quit yapping, Sands," Blanca said from behind him. "Chucho, drop the bitch, we need to finish this and head for Tampico."

"Just let me take care of the Fed and my little _chica_ here," Chucho said.

"Oh, no. No, that isn't going to happen this time, Chucho," Ramirez said. "I said to let her go."

Chucho giggled. "What, or you'll shoot me?"

"Yes."

"Blanca?"

"Got it," she said. "Sands, keep your gun on Heller."

Oh, like he needed to be told that. Since when was he on Blanca and Chucho's side, though? They probably didn't realize he had a past with Ramirez, even if the sonovobitch had left him to die on the street.

He felt Blanca moving, knew she was about to pop Ramirez, and thought he should probably interfere. The instant his gun shifted off-line from Heller and Chucho, though, he knew the other agent would be moving. He didn't dare. Sands gritted his teeth.

"Put the gun down - " That was Ramirez.

Blanca didn't, of course.

Three gunshots, so fast Sands couldn't tell who pulled the trigger.

A body hit the floor.

He waited, wondering who bought it.

~*~

The blond gringa dropped her gun and folded down to the ground. A look of shock softened her features and she clutched at the two bullet wounds. She looked at Ramirez in disbelief.

"Bastard," she breathed before the last life fled from her pale blue eyes.

Ramirez spun around, looking for the two CIA agents and Chucho, trying to find Reyes. He froze.

Chucho had Grace's arm and was trying to drag her closer to him. She was clutching the bar and fighting him. A few feet away, Heller, the black man with the houndstooth cap and soul patch, held up both hands and laughed, white teeth flashing. At the apex of the triangle stood Sands, like an image of death, black clothes, black sunglasses, black gun moving between Heller and Chucho. Heller's hands were empty. Chucho held a knife and had a gun shoved in his waistband.

"You can take out Chucho or you can take out me," Heller taunted. "Can't get us both."

"You throw the gun away, gringo, or I cut the woman into shreds, just like that bitch in Chiapas," Chucho hissed. He jerked on Grace's arm again and she lost her grip on the bar and screamed, stumbling toward Chucho.

Just like that, Sands' aim shifted and he fired. Three holes bloomed, one just under Chucho's eye and two in his chest. Heller was already running. Sands turned the gun toward him, but the gun was dry and just clicked when Sands pulled the trigger.

Grace wrestled her way free of Chucho's dead body and kicked it. "Fucker! _Chingado tu madre!_ "

Sands dropped the empty gun and twisted his head toward Ramirez as he approached. He swayed but didn't move as Ramirez shoved the muzzle of his own weapon into the skin behind Sands' ear.

"Another clever CIA plan, hey, Sands?" Ramirez snarled. "You call this inter-agency cooperation?" He gestured at the woman and Chucho's corpses and the exit Heller had disappeared through.

"I'm not CIA anymore, Jorge," Sands breathed, apparently amused; his lips turned up in a growing smile. "I'm retired."

"Agents don't retire, Sands," Ramirez replied. "Remember? They just take it a little easier."

Sands laughed. "Believe me, _amigo_, nothing has been easy since the Day of the Dead."

"I should just kill you now."

The muzzle of a double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun nudged cold and unforgiving against Ramirez' temple. The bar reeked of spent gunpowder, adrenaline sweat, stale beer, and body fluids: blood and piss and the telltale shit-stink of a gut wound - the last two bullets he put in the blond gringa, before she went down. Ramirez' muscles wanted to shake in the aftermath of the fight. He was too damn old for gunfights in Tijuana bars. Too slow to sense the approach of another threat before it was digging the muzzle of a gun into his skin. He wanted to curse and bit it back, waiting.

"If you try to do that, I will have to kill you," a Mexican accented voice stated.

Ramirez slid his eyes sidewise without lifting his gun from Sands' head. He recognized the big man from the Presidential Palace in Culiacan. It was the silent one who had shot Barillo and saved him on _El Día de los Muertos_. The man who had killed General Marquez and saved the President of Mexico from a coup.

It was El Mariachi.

Another one of Sands' puppets from that bloody day. Ramirez wondered why El Mariachi would stop him from pulling the trigger. Unless the man simply didn't know who it was Ramirez had at gunpoint.

"Do you know who this is?" he asked.

"_Sí_," the Mariachi said.

Ramirez pulled his revolver back and stepped away from Sands. El Mariachi tracked him with the shotgun until he reached Grace's side. Then he stepped into Ramirez' spot next to Sands, who hadn't moved, hadn't even turned his head.

"About time you showed up, El," Sands complained lightly. "We had to start the party without you."

"So I see," the Mariachi commented.

Sands sidled a step closer to the Mariachi, who settled an arm around the black-clad killer's waist in a clearly possessive move. Ramirez' eyes widened. He glanced at Sands, expecting the man to jerk free. Instead, Sands was melting as close to El Mariachi as he could, head dropping against the taller man's shoulder.

"Never again," El said to Sands. "You never walk into a trap without me again."

Sands barely lifted his head. "Heller got away. I want to kill that fuckmook. Those piss-sucking, limpdick asswipes at Langley set me up."

El cocked his head. "Sands …"

"Lorenzo's girl's dead," Sands mumbled against El's shirt front. Standing so close to the looming Mariachi, Sands was too skinny and clearly exhausted, trembling with it, not the man Ramirez remembered. "That was a really fucked up plan, El. Next time listen to me, okay?"

"It was your plan," El murmured.

"It would have worked if Heller wasn't a doublecrossing, chickenchoking piece of donkey snot," Sands almost whined. He straightened and pulled away from El.

The Mariachi kept his hand on the small of Sands' back, though. "And I wanted to give Lorenzo and Fideo the information and get out. That was my plan. Let someone else get shot at and beaten up. "

The door to the bar creaked open and all of them except Sands turned toward the square of light and the silhouette in it.

"Did you find - ?" the curly-haired young man asked in a slur of soft Spanish. His eyes settled on El and the black-clad man next to him. "Sands."

El nodded. "And Chucho."

The newcomer strode in and past them to Chucho's corpse. He hawked a gob of spit into the dead man's eyes. "For Lorenzo and Anna," he hissed, then looked up.

"Let's go, then. " He ignored Ramirez and Grace.

"Not yet," El said quietly. He looked at Ramirez, eyes full of recognition and questions. "Who are you?"

Sands slid the empty gun into his belt and reached across El to tug the shotgun down. "That's Ramirez. I don't know what he's doing in Tijuana or who the babe is, but I don't think we want to kill them, El," he said, surprising Ramirez.

El's eyes told Ramirez that would change in an instant if he lifted so much as a threatening finger toward Sands. Ramirez wasn't as angry as he'd been moments before, anyway. He'd thought Sands was with Heller and Chucho, but that clearly wasn't the case. He wondered about the blond gringa shooter, though.

Sands let go of El's arm. He turned his head from side to side, then sucked in a breath. "Lorenzo?"

"_Muerte,_" El replied.

"Stupid crazy guitar players," Sands muttered. His hands clenched and unclenched.

Grace stepped forward a pace and said, "I'm Grace Reyes. I'm a reporter - "

Sands twitched. "Oh, that's just peachy keen," he muttered.

"And you're Sands. And El Mariachi," she finished. She looked at the young man who walked in last with an inquiring smile.

He just gave her a sleepy look and walked over to the bar, where he liberated a bottle of tequila. Sands cocked his head. "Fideo, you selfish, fifty-peso fuck, if you're starting to drink, bring me some tequila, too."

Fideo snagged a second bottle.

"What are you doing here?" El asked. "Why was Chucho after you?" His brooding gaze switched from Ramirez to Grace. "Unless it was you - ? No?"

Grace wrapped her arms around herself and sighed. "It was all three of us. I was stupid, I wanted the story of_ El Día de los Muertos_ and I never guessed anyone would be following me. They killed the boy's parents and would have killed us if Mr. Ramirez hadn't helped us get away."

"Cartel," El breathed.

Ramirez nodded.

Sands had stiffened. One hand latched onto El's belt. "What boy?" he demanded, in a low dangerous voice.

"The boy that was on the street last time I saw you," Ramirez said harshly.

Sands actually seemed to get paler. "Chiclet?"

Ramirez snorted and a rumble of laughter escaped the Mariachi. "I wasn't in any goddamned state to get his name," Sands protested. "You know, bad day, busy trying to bleed to death, remember, El?"

"He wasn't there when I found you," El said.

Sands shrugged uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, I told him to fuck off. I didn't want him hanging around, in case any more cartelistas showed up or some of Marquez' tin soldiers. I wasn't doing too good anyway." Ramirez was startled to realize that Sands had let him walk away without asking for help, without expecting it from anyone else, and then sent the boy away too. Sands had been, in his peculiar fashion, trying to spare the kid.

Fideo took a pull off one bottle of tequila and strolled over to Sands. He caught Sands' free hand and wrapped it around the second bottle. "Can we get out of here now?"

"We should get back to Pablito," Grace said. "He's alone and scared and needs to know Chucho can't hurt anyone anymore." She glanced at Sands. "I should thank you for killing him."

"No, you shouldn't," Sands said quickly. "I didn't do it for you."

He took a swig of tequila and started to take a second, but El snatched the bottle away. "You have enough bruises," El said quietly. "You don't need more."

"It's the Mariachi motherhen again," Sands muttered, but offered no more protest. One hand was still threaded into El's belt. He followed El as the guitar player headed out the back.

Fideo waved his tequila bottle at Ramirez and Grace. "Come on. He wants to get some place safe enough he can make sure that Blanca bitch and the rest of the cartel bastards didn't do too much damage to his gringo."

Ramirez shook his head.

Sands and the Mariachi.

No one was ever who you thought they were, not all the time.

~*~

Sands followed El out the back of the nightclub. His heart was hammering. His fingers were locked on the back of El's heavy belt. He couldn't peel them loose.

He stumbled on a step in the doorway and El caught him, pushing Sands back against a wall almost brutally. The stucco was painfully hot against his shoulder blades, even through his shirt and sport coat, burning into every raw wound on his back. He gasped, before slumping back. The afternoon sun burned against his face.

El leaned close, so close his breath was another warmth against Sands' skin. Sands tipped his face up.

_"Díos," _El whispered. He cupped the back of Sands' skull.

Sands ran his free hand - his other was still clenched onto El's belt - up El's back under his jacket.

"This is a stupid place to be doing this," Sands said, but offered no other objection. El's presence was real and solid, big enough to block out the heat of the sun as he bent closer. Sands tasted salt on his lips as they kissed, then lost himself in the experience. He only remembered he couldn't see when El finally pulled away.

_"Sí."_

He pressed closer to El. El's hair brushed against his cheek. One hand rested on Sands' hip. The other one slipped down from his hair to the nape of his neck and stroked. Sands sighed.

"El," he murmured after a moment. He finally let go of the belt.

"I have something that's yours," El said. He stepped back from Sands.

"Yeah?"

He didn't even flinch when El carefully took away the sunglasses Blanca had bought for him. El took Sands' hand and guided it inside his jacket to a pocket over his heart. Sands frowned, feeling the familiar shape.

Sunglasses.

His sunglasses. Right over El's heart.

"Fideo found them."

Sands pulled the sunglasses out and put them on, immediately feeling better.

"And you kept them."

_"Sí."_

In the pocket where El kept the locket that had belonged to Carolina.

"Okay," he said. "Okay."

~*~

The little house on the edge of a Tijuana slum had two bedrooms. Ramirez had taken one and Grace had taken the other. Pablito had gone with Grace. With the influx of two mariachis and a rogue CIA agent, the house was much too crowded now. Fideo had disappeared, though, after emptying a tequila bottle and declaring he needed to find another, and he would sleep in the car. El had just nodded. He'd parked Sands on a chair at the little kitchen's bare table and begun checking the man for wounds.

Ramirez had been shocked when Sands didn't protest, and further shocked when El peeled away Sands' jacket and shirt, revealing blood and bruises bad enough to bring up bile in his throat. Sands hadn't made a sound as El washed the ugly wounds, cleaning the lash marks and cigarette burns that criss-crossed his back. He leaned forward with his elbows on the table, head hanging, shuddering once in a while. Ramirez could count every rib and every knob of Sands' spine down his back.

Ramirez went into the bathroom and came back with a first aid kit, laying it open next to the bowl of warm water the Mariachi had fetched. The man nodded to him silently. Once the wounds were clean, he stroked disinfectant into them, taping gauze over three of the deepest lash marks.

Sands let out a hissing breath only once, otherwise remaining silent, though after a while he began to tremble.

When El finished with Sands' back, he picked up the man's hands and rubbed antibiotic salve into the raw weals on his wrists. Then he carefully wrapped each wrist. Sands endured this too without words, only several flinches. Finally, the Mariachi helped Sands put on a clean shirt.

Ramirez stood in the corner and watched in disbelief as Sands' groped for and caught El's hand. "Gracias," he muttered.

El stroked Sands' hair and gave Ramirez a look that dared him to speak. "Fool," he murmured to Sands. Sands pushed into the petting like a greedy cat. "Did Heller do anything else?"

Sands tipped his head up. The black sunglasses still hid his eyes - or whatever was left. Ramirez had finally accepted that Sands truly was blind. He winced when he remembered leaving the man leaning against a wall in Culiacan on the Day of the Dead after the coup failed. He'd seen that Sands was wounded, seen the blood running down the man's face, but he couldn't imagine what had been done to him, because Sands gave nothing away, even then.

"No," Sands whispered to El. He leaned his head into El's touch.

"You should eat something," El said.

"Not hungry," Sands replied. Exhaustion slurred his words. "Later."

El drew Sands to his feet and guided him out of the kitchen. "Then you should sleep." He steered Sands to the couch and drew him down. Sands immediately slumped over, his head resting on El's lap.

"I could use a cigarette," Sands murmured.

El snorted. "You'd burn the house down over our heads."

"Fucker," Sands muttered. He wriggled and winced, before settling on his side.

"Sleep."

"I'll fucking dream."

El smoothed his scarred hand over Sands' shoulder. "Then I'll wake you." With an exasperated sigh, Sands settled into silence. El kept petting him even after Sands' breathing evened out and the last tension leached from the lean form. Then he carefully slid off the black sunglasses, folding and tucking them inside Sands' shirt pocket.

Ramirez studied Sands' unguarded face. Sands was drawn much thinner and paler than in Culiacan, though still handsome. Long, dark lashes brushed his cheekbones. Pale, jagged scars marred his eyelids. Ramirez frowned, then caught the Mariachi's pensive gaze.

"Barillo's daughter and the doctor took his eyes," El said. "He remembers Guevara using a drill." His hand brushed tenderly along Sands' temple and cheekbone. "They thought they would break him, but he would not lie down and die." Sands murmured restlessly, then quieted as El rubbed his shoulder gently and murmured to him soothingly.

"Guevara," Ramirez breathed, remembering the smiling sadist who had tortured and killed his own partner. He'd followed Barillo south because of Tom Archuleta. Sands had certainly been aware of how dangerous Guevara and Barillo were; Ramirez wondered how they had taken the canny CIA agent. Then he blinked, remembering the beautiful woman who had knocked him out in the hospital and strode out of the palace just before he followed Billy Chambers inside to try and take down Barillo. Ajedrez, Chambers had told him, was Barillo's daughter.

"Ajedrez?" he echoed.

"Ajedrez."

Sands flinched and shuddered even in his sleep and El ran a calming hand along his spine.

"She was his lover," the Mariachi explained very softly.

"How did you two - ?" Ramirez made a meaningless gesture, not sure if he meant how did the Mariachi and Sands meet or how did they end up together.

"He found me. Offered me the chance to kill Marquez," El replied. He added quietly. "Marquez killed my wife, Carolina, killed my daughter, left me for dead … and the Barillo cartel had been hunting me for years. Afterward, I found Sands. I thought I would kill him, too."

Ramirez frowned. The Mariachi pushed long hair away from his face. Moving slowly and carefully, he shrugged off his jacket and laid it over Sands' shoulders. The sleeping man huddled under the scorpion mark without waking. El looked up and met Ramirez' confused gaze.

He half-smiled. "You are wondering why I didn't?"

"Well, yes."

"He wanted to die, so I would not do it. I thought if I could keep him alive, it would be another way of wounding the cartels."

"Revenge," Ramirez murmured. He was still confused. That didn't match the Mariachi's attitude toward Sands now. It didn't fit with Sands' reactions to El, either.

"He is … ruined. Like me. But he is still … he will stay." El looked thoughtful. Ramirez guessed he was more comfortable expressing himself through his music or with his guns. He knew it was relief that had so many words spilling from El now. "He was like a feral cat, but too hurt to fight me at first. Sometimes he still scratches and bites, but he stays. - I do not think anyone ever gave him anything. He did not know how to - to accept, at first."

The hand with the leather gauntlet stroked dusty black hair away from Sands' face.

"He is not innocent," El said. "I know he is cruel, full of malice and tricks." Sands' breath was steady and slow. Ramirez watched as El listened to it for a long moment. Even asleep, Sands demanded attention and emotion. "He's too clever for his own good." Loyalty. Danger. Both lived within the fragile bundle of pale limbs lying trustingly next to the Mariachi. "But he belongs to Mexico; he is mine now."

Ramirez considered the halting explanation and almost understood. It wasn't his business anyway. He picked himself out of his chair, feeling tired and stiff. "You should take the other bedroom; there are two of you. I will sleep on the couch."

El studied him a moment and nodded. "Sands," he murmured into the sleeping man's ear. "Up."

Sands groggily pulled himself into a sitting position. "What is it?"

"We're going to the bedroom."

"Oh. Okay," he mumbled. He let El draw him up to his feet and stood, swaying. Then a hand rose toward his face in a panicked clutch, feeling for the missing sunglasses. "No. Where - ?" Sands kept his eyelids squeezed tight shut.

El caught Sands's hand and guided it to the glasses tucked into his shirt pocket.

"All is well," he crooned.

"Golly, El," Sands responded, "let's see you say that when _you're_ the blind one."

"Come," El said, looping his arm around Sands' shoulder.

"Come. Sit. Stay. Roll over, shake hands, play dead," Sands grumbled. "When the hell do you think I went to obedience school?"

"Never," El laughed. "I think you are a cat, not a dog."

"Better," Sands said. He yawned unselfconsciously, displaying a curling pink tongue very much like a cat's.

Ramirez chuckled.

"To bed, to sleep, _mi gato_," El urged. He wrapped his arm around Sands' slight waist and walked him down the hall.

"On the right," Ramirez called quietly.

He waited until he heard the bedroom door close behind them, then moved to the couch and stretched his own weary body on its length. He thought of the two men and the contentment and relief in their silent touches. He thought he would have liked to lie down beside Grace Reyes and know that same comfort, but the boy had needed it so much more than him.

The boy. Pablo. He would never be safe until the Bautista cartel was completely destroyed. Chucho's death would only tell them that the child mattered to El Mariachi and Sands, making him an even more attractive target. The other CIA agent, Heller, was still out there, too, and he would tell them.

He thought of the marks burned and beaten into Sands' body. Heller had done that. Perhaps had done worse to others, who weren't ex-CIA officers with some claim to his mercy. Ramirez stirred restlessly on the couch. Heller was another Guevara.

Sands was going after him. The Mariachi would go with Sands. So perhaps would that young man, Fideo.

Ramirez stared at the ceiling.

Sands hadn't said anything.

It didn't matter. He was going with them, too.

Decided, Ramirez found it easy to fall asleep.

~*~

Sands let El undress him, doll-limp and drowsy. His head drooped, too-long dark hair veiling his face, baring the naked, vulnerable nape of his neck. El brushed his fingertips down, feeling the delicate bones too close under feverish skin. Sands shivered at the touch.

"El?"

He finished, drawing off Sands' pants.

He'd already seen the wounds on Sands' back, the bloody wrists and bruises. Now El catalogued washboard ribs, hollowed flanks, bone shining white through translucent skin at shoulder and hip, ankle, knee, elbow and shoulder blade. The gaunt look of a predator wounded and unable to hunt; that odd, touching fragility that still fascinated El in concert with the razor-wire spirit and baffling, quick wit. His fists wanted to clench in hot rage, looking at the marks of Sands' captivity. At the same time, he wanted to run his hands over Sands' body, reassure himself of its presence, relearn every inch of pale skin and lean muscle.

With a sigh, he swept back the bedding instead and urged Sands down into the bed. Sands sank down with a muffled hum, a sound of relief that speared through El. He doubted anyone, not lover or even mother, had ever glimpsed him so boneless and undone as he allowed himself to be with El.

He undressed swiftly himself and crawled in beside his lover. Sands relaxed against him with a sleepy mutter of irritation. "'Bout time. I'm cold."

El wrapped himself around the other man, noticing that Sands was actually hot, definitely running a fever.

"Sleep," he said.

"Bossy stringplucker," Sands slurred back, already half-asleep.

"Sleep."

"Mmn hmn."

~*~

Sands followed the murmur of voices to the small house's kitchen. He barely remembered the night before. By the time El had begun patching him up, he'd been running on the dregs of empty. Waking in the bed alone hadn't been much of a surprise, El generally woke before Sands. The sheets had still held something of El's scent, though. Sands had rolled onto his back, wincing at the sting in his wounds, and luxuriated in the quiet feeling of safety that came with knowing El was near. His stomach was burning a hole through him, though, protesting how long it had been since he'd eaten anything.

El had left his sunglasses on the small table beside the bed. His fingers brushed another familiar shape lying next to them: his telescoping cane. Another touch found his gunbelt and holsters, loaded guns within, lying on top of a neatly folded set of clothing.

Sands allowed himself a smile.

He dressed slowly, fumbling because he was stiff and still hurting. El had left his boots neatly set on the floor at the foot of the bed.

It felt odd, but he didn't pull on the gun harness. He shoved the small, flat-sided .22 in one boot top, and a Glock in the back of his jeans where his vest covered it, and padded out. He slipped the loop to the cane around his wrist, but guided himself by trailing his fingers along the wall.

He identified the voices as he approached the kitchen. El's voice and Ramirez' he knew, Fideo's slurred tones had become familiar, leaving only two that were unknown. One was the reporter, easily recognized simply because she was the only woman present, but the final one tickled at his memory. As he stepped into the room, the conversation died. He heard a chair scrape back and then light footsteps racing toward him.

_"Señor Pistolero!_" the high, childish voice cried out, a bare instant before Sands would have drawn his gun and taken a shot. His memory kicked into gear. It was the gum boy, Chiclet, from Culiacan. The kid barreled into him and latched on like a leech, rocking Sands back on his feet. He awkwardly half-hugged the kid back, patting his back lightly and wishing El or someone would get him the hell off.

"Hey, kid," he muttered. Thin arms were locked around his waist and he felt the wetness of tears through his shirt. "Hey, it's okay. Good to see you too, or, you know, not, because I can't …" He kept patting the kid's back helplessly.

"_Señor_, _señor_, they killed mamacita and papi and mi hermano," the kid wailed into his waist.

"What? My Christ," Sands muttered, automatically tightening his hold on the kid. He never let anyone this close voluntarily, except El, but the kid wasn't a threat. He made himself stay gentle. Fragile shoulder bones were sharp under his bare fingers and the hot child's skin under the thin layer of a sweaty cotton T-shirt felt disconcertingly the same as on _that_ day. He'd bet the kid had had finger-shaped bruises after the Day of the Dead, he'd held on so tight then. Now the kid was clutching him with the same desperation. He couldn't push him away.

"Who was it,_ muchacho_?" he asked.

"Cartel," the boy whispered. "Chucho."

Sands smiled. "Well, kid, you're in luck, because just by chance, yesterday I sent Chucho straight to Broadway. I blew him away. Dusted him. Put him down. Chucho is _muerte_. Dead as a doornail, kid."

The kid lifted his head and Sands guessed he was checking out his face. _"Truth?"_

Acting on impulse, Sands smoothed his hand over the kid's head and nodded. "You can ask Ramirez over there or your lady friend, they were there. I smoked Chucho. He won't ever hurt you again." Shit, that sounded like a damn promise. He knew better than anyone that promises weren't worth the air it took to make them. But, hell, Chucho _was_ dead and Sands didn't think the crazy little bastard had enough imagination to come back from the grave.

The kid hugged him again, which didn't feel all that good against his bruised ribs, but Sands tolerated it. He took a shuffling step forward, moving the kid with him. His brain decided it was time to cough up that someone had called the kid Pablito the day before. "Come on, kid, you want to let me breathe, okay?"

"Pablo," the woman said quietly.

"_Sí, señor,"_ the kid said and let go, but stayed beside Sands, shoulder under his hand the way it had been before. Sands tightened his fingers faintly in acknowledgement and let the kid guide him to the table.

"_Señor_ Ramirez is here," the kid told him, carefully walking forward, "and _Señorita_ Reyes and_ Señor_ Fideo and - " Sands slapped the back of Fideo's head unerringly as the sot began snickering, " - El Mariachi."

El shoved a chair back with a loud scrape that let Sands locate it easily and sit down next to him.

He heard the kid perch himself in a chair next to him.

Sands cocked his head.

"Anyone going to catch me up on the gossip or should I just assume you all were chatting about me?" he asked.

"Sands," Ramirez muttered wearily. Sands imagined the eye-roll that went with the tone. It was easy to imagine with Ramirez because he had a memory of the man's face from before. He didn't know what the woman or even Fideo looked like. The mental gestalts he formed for people in his mind were very different now, based on voice and scent and a sixth sense for the way they moved: fast or slow, jerky or smooth, waving the air around with their hands or still like El and Fideo.

He heard El rise, chains sounding softly, and then the sound of something being poured into a cup. Sands sniffed and held up his hand to take the cup of coffee El handed him. He sipped it cautiously. El took his coffee at the boil. Ah, this must have been made by Ramirez or the woman; it wasn't too hot, either. Sands took another swallow appreciatively.

He carefully set the cup on the table top.

"Mr. Sands," the woman said. "I suppose you'll think it's stupid, but your friends," - Sands choked while El, Fideo, and Ramirez all laughed - "don't want to talk about the coup on _El Día de los Muertos_. Do you think you could tell me what happened?"

"Why? Why should I talk to you?" Sands was beginning to get himself wound up as he thought about it. "If you hadn't shown up, Chucho and the cartel wouldn't have come after the _muchacho_ here, trying to hunt down El for the bounty. Ramirez wouldn't be on the run, Lorenzo and his girlfriend would still be alive, I wouldn't have had the everlovin' shit beat out of me by an ex-colleague, the kid wouldn't be an orphan, El wouldn't - "

El touched his shoulder lightly and Sands stopped, disgusted with himself. He grabbed up the coffee and drank some more.

When he set the cup down again, he said flatly, "_El Día de los Muertos_ was one of the two worst days of my life. I do not want to talk about it. Ever." Not while he still dreamed of Ajedrez' smile and the drill.

"But - "

"Enough," El commanded.

"So what next?" Sands asked. He angled himself toward El. "What happened in Chiapas after Blanca dragged me out of there?"

"The Zapatistas attacked Bautista's estado," Fideo said. He sounded sober for once, which sent a chill down Sands' spine. "Lorenzo … " The sound of shifting fabric made Sands think Fideo had shrugged. "Bautista's wife shot him. The cartel's hold in Chiapas is broken, but the CIA man and Bautista got out. Chucho wasn't even there. The gringa disappeared. And you."

Sands frowned. Hadn't the ELZN group been in bed with Bautista? He'd heard someone talking with Heller, hadn't he? He'd only been half-conscious, but … there had been something about an arms deal. Maybe it fell through or Heller double-crossed the Zapatistas, too. But then Blanca had said the Zapatista's were attacking when she pulled him out of there ....

"We followed," El said simply.

"Why were you with the gringa?" Fideo asked. He sounded a lot sharper when he wasn't drowning in tequila, Sands thought. He also sounded faintly accusing.

"Well, not because I was taken with her charms," Sands replied. He still hurt. Blanca hadn't been interested in torturing him, but she hadn't wanted to play Nurse Nell, either. Everything Heller had done had been left untreated until El took over the night before. "She figured I could take her to Heller. Didn't offer me much choice: go with her or die."

"This Heller seems even less likable than you, Sands," Ramirez commented.

"Hah hah, very funny, Jorge," Sands said. "That - I'm not - " He shuddered. What Heller had done while they held him at Bautista's estate had been bad enough, but what he'd threatened they would do had nearly broken him. He'd thought nothing would ever compare to his blinding, but he'd been wrong. Heller had laughed and promised Sands he wouldn't die. Bautista's doctors would make sure of that, even after Heller smashed his hands and feet and sliced his tendons, even when he was deafened, even when his tongue had been cut out … Heller promised to leave him so that he couldn't even kill himself. Sands had been screaming inside at the thought.

A small, hot hand wrapped around his fingers where they were clutching the edge of the table. Everyone was silent and Sands wondered how long he'd been out of it, replaying his stay in Bautista's cellars. Did they see how shaky he was inside, just from remembering Heller's threats? The kid was saying something. Sands tried to listen.

_"Señor, señor_, are you all right?"

"_Sí_," he heard himself say distantly. Part of him was still in the cellar, though, in the darkness; the darkness that was the same everywhere. Heller was out there somewhere. Maybe, Sands thought wildly, feeling his heart begin to race, Heller had already done it and he was only dreaming Blanca had taken him out of there.

He drew a panicked breath, suddenly convinced it was true; escape was the dream and he was still in the nightmare. Everything was gone and he was sinking into a never-ending hell. He felt himself sway in his chair. Another hand was on him, steadying him, though, and the kid - Pablito - was clutching his hand. The scent of coffee and burnt toast, of morning damp, of bubble gum and childish sweat, of Fideo's cigarettes, and next to him, like a hot desert wind, El, blood, cordite, dust and death, filled his lungs. It slammed Sands back into reality and he gasped. He turned his hand in Pablito's and squeezed it gently.

"_Sí_," he said again. He groped for the coffee cup, found it shoved into his hand and swallowed the cooling brew gratefully, grounded once more. El's hand stayed on his back, steady and warm.

"What did Heller do?" Ramirez asked quietly. The question wasn't really aimed at Sands.

Sands shook his head, though. He didn't think he could speak of the terror those threats had seeded in him.

He made himself say something. "The Agency knew who Ajedrez was. Heller's the one who pulled the information from the background report on her."

Ramirez hissed out a harsh breath.

"Why?"

Sands shrugged. "To get me out of the way, probably. I wouldn't crawl in bed with the cartels and I would have heard if anyone else on the Agency's payroll did."

"You were set up."

Sands leaned back into El's hand. Despite his bravado the day before, he hadn't really believed El would find him. The best he'd hoped for was to find his own way back to Villa Perdidos. Show up like the proverbial bad penny.

El was stroking his back.

Sands tried out a smile. He had a feeling it didn't quite succeed. He didn't care, as long as El was there. "They set me up, they watched me fall. I'd guess I wasn't the only agent they burned, either. Not the first and not the last." Like that rat Nicolas' princes, he thought; when he'd thought he was _The Prince._

"Like Archuleta," Ramirez said.

"Except I survived," Sands added.

"That must have pissed them off."

Sands laughed at that. "Gosh, Jorge, haven't you figured out that I'm good at that?"

Ramirez chuckled reluctantly. "Oh, I'd guessed."

Reyes spoke tentatively. "This man Bautista, he was the one who sent Chucho after Pablo and me?"

"In a sense," Sands said.

"Then we can go home. Chucho's dead. It's safe, right?"

"Going back to Culiacan would be a mistake," Ramirez said.

_"Sí,"_ El agreed. Sands thought he was probably looking at Ramirez.

Sands heard the sniff from the kid. It was the tiniest sound. He wouldn't have heard it before. Hell, he wouldn't have cared before, but this was his Chiclet kid, and he did. The kid was still holding his hand, offering his own little bit of comfort along with El. Sands didn't do guilt, he wasn't responsible for what Chucho had done, but damned if he didn't want to do something for the kid.

Not quite sure of how to do that, he tugged the kid close enough to pull inside the curve of his arm. Pablo leaned against him. Still sniffing. Sands imagined he was getting tears and snot all of his shirt. He didn't care.

_"Where do I go?"_ Pablo whispered.

Well, shit. He twisted his head toward El while patting at the kid's back. He could really use a little help here.

"Pablito?" Reyes said. Her voice caught and Sands guessed she was finally remembering the kid didn't have a family left. Going home sort of sucked after the cartel did a number on everyone that mattered to you.

"Look, kid," Sands said softly, "we'll figure something out."

"He'll stay with me," Reyes said. She sounded determined. Good, Sands thought.

_"Señor?"_

He hugged Pablo a little closer. "That okay with you, kid?"

_"I want to come with you, señor."_

"Not a good idea, okay?" Sands said. "We're going after some bad men - like Chucho. That's no place for you - "

_"I could be your eyes again!"_

Sands thought fast. "You need to use those eyes to look out for_ Señorita_ Reyes, okay?"

_"Sí."_

"Promise?"

"_Sí, señor."_

"Good boy."

El said, "Fideo will take you back to our village."

"I'm going with you," Ramirez said.

Sands was a little surprised. "Why?"

He heard Ramirez drum his fingers on the table top.

"Your agency wasn't the only one with a sell-out."

"You think you've got a line on finding Heller?"

_"Sí,"_ Ramirez admitted. "A dirty agent named Bethel. He sold out Archuleta. I could never prove it, but he's the one who came down to Culiacan. The next thing I know, the cartel is after me."

"How enlightening," Sands gibed. "So where is he?"

"He works out of the El Paso office now."

"And you know because … ?"

"I still have some contacts with the Bureau," Ramirez admitted.

"Ah."

"Can they locate Bautista?" El asked.

"Are we going after him too?" Sands asked. He _would_ kill Heller, because Heller would not forget about him, but he didn't much care about the Mexican drug lord.

_"Sí."_

He was going to have to talk to El about that, but later. He finished his coffee and wished he had a cigarette. El's hand slipped away from his back. Scrape, chair, jingle, chains, gurgle, pouring, and a fresh cup was in his hand. Then El was drawing Pablo away.

"Come, _muchacho_, my friend needs to eat something."

Sands wasn't sure he wanted to eat anything, but he didn't protest. He had a feeling El would force feed him and Ramirez would be happy to hold him down to help.

~*~

Sands knew a man who knew a man who provided Ramirez and El with passports. For a steep price, Sands reminded them on his way out. Ramirez didn't ask where the money came from to pay. Sands just disappeared with their photos and Fideo driving, then returned hours later with the requisite items. He must have had a safety deposit box somewhere with an emergency cache of funds and an ID for himself; the passport Ramirez snuck a look inside had a picture of him from before the Day of the Dead.

He flipped his own new passport open and looked at his photo and new name. According to the passport, he was George Luther Espinoza, a US citizen. A worn wallet, shaped to an ass, held a Texas driver's license, a social security card and a collection of plastic; library, bank card, American Express, even a couple of discount cards for a video chain and an El Paso grocery store. There were crumpled receipts, notes, family photographs stuffed in its folds.

"Nice," Ramirez commented.

"You drive down to Guadalajara twice a year to see your grandparents and cousins," Sands said, "but you were born in the States." He had found another tasteless T-shirt, this one virulent green, bearing the slogan: "Don't Worry, It Only Seems Kinky the First Time." The rest of his clothes were black. He tipped his head and added quietly, "I had Fideo look everything over."

Ramirez flipped through the passport and saw the stamps, the wear and tear that made it look like he'd been through customs at the border regularly. A closer look showed that his photograph had been doctored to look a little different than he did now. It looked subtly younger than the face he saw in the mirror when he shaved.

"So, what did you name the Mariachi?" Ramirez asked.

A smug smile was his answer. "Take a look," Sands said.

Ramirez picked up the second envelope and the papers Sands had bought for El. A snort of laughter escaped him.

"Fernando?"

"It has a certain gravitas, don't you agree, Agent Ramirez? Fernando Valdez."

"Uh hunh. It's also an ABBA song."

The smile widened. "You don't say."

Ramirez shook his head.

~*~

"Well, Fernando, I guess it's time to cross the Rio Grande," Sands remarked.

"Fernando?" El said.

"Well, I couldn't see anyone buying a passport with 'Juan Valdez'."

"Oh, I don't know," Ramirez said, "He may not have a burro, but he does have a jackass."

Sands cheerfully gave him the finger.

El rolled his eyes, turned the key in the ignition and aimed the convertible they'd bought, a turquoise barge that dated back to the seventies, north toward the border crossing at Juarez.

Fideo had already left with Reyes and Pablo, driving El's clunker back to Villa Perdidos. They would be okay. Pablo had insisted on hugging Sands when they said good-bye, which had amused El and Ramirez. The blind man had hugged the kid back and slipped him the .22, "Just in case."

Pablo took the small gun, holding it carefully.

"Don't use it if you don't have to, _muchacho_," Sands said softly. "Savvy?"

_"Sí, señor,"_ Pablo whispered.

Sands had nodded. "Okay." He dusted his hands together. "Make sure Fideo keeps his drunken mitts off my guitar. It's the blue one."

"I will, _señor._"

"Sure. So … get outta here. Scram. Hit the road, kid," Sands said. He waved hand in the direction of Fideo and Reyes. "Your ride's waiting. Vamoose."

Pablo grinned and said, "Fuck off?"

Reyes gasped while the rest of them laughed. "No question where he learned that," she muttered to Fideo.

Sands was still for a second, then he grinned. "Yeah."

Pablo hugged him a second time. "Be careful, _señor. Vaya con Díos_."

"Yeah, yeah." Sands patted Pablo's shoulder, then pushed him away. "Fuck off."

Pablo had trotted away, still smiling. He waved at them from the backseat. Ramirez had lifted his hand in salute as Fideo steered the aging, dusty-red Cadillac past them. El was shoving his guitar case in the backseat of their car to make room for Sands. He'd ducked his head back out and nudged Sands. "Wave."

Sands had flapped his hand in the air, commenting, "You better be waving too, dicklicker."

El waved too.

"I am."

Five minutes later, El drove them away too. Sands was in possession of the backseat, along with Ramirez' duffle and the guitar case. There had been a wrangle over that, but El had won. _"You might as well sleep. You can't drive."_

Ramirez had the front passenger seat and access to the box of eight-track tapes that had come with the car. He looked through them while El hit the gas and let the old V8 engine roar down the road.

Sands leaned over the seat and laughed. "Fucking leadfoot mariachi, huh, Ramirez?"

He found the tape he'd hoped for and chortled.

"Ramirez?"

It went into the player installed under the faux-leather dash and started.

Sands howled with laughter and slapped Ramirez' shoulder.

>   
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>>> _Can you hear the drums, Fernando?  
> I remember long ago another starry night like this  
> In the firelight, Fernando,  
> you were humming to yourself and softly strumming your guitar _
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> 
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> 

El hunched his shoulders.

"Loco gringos."

Ramirez and Sands kept laughing.

~*~

"The Dancing Cactus?" 'Fernando Valdez' said in disbelief as he braked the car to a stop in front of the El Paso restaurant. A bright green cactus man with a white stetson, shiny spurs, and chaps adorned the sign over the squat eatery's doorway. He steered the car around the back into a baking hot parking lot.

"My friend at the local FBI office says Bethel hangs out here every day and that he mentioned meeting a contact there today," Ramirez said.

El parked next to a dust-coated white Mazda. The lot was mostly empty. The automatic transmission creaked as he cranked the gearshift over. The air shimmered over the tar-black pavement and settled around them like a hot blanket once the car stopped moving.

"Heller?" he asked. He kept his voice low. Sands had slept through much of the trip, waking when they stopped for food or gas and slumping across the backseat the rest of the time. He knew Sands wanted Heller himself, but El wanted to put a bullet through the man for the marks he'd found on Sands.

"Likely, don't you think?" Ramirez said.

El glanced back. Sands was a black bundled shadow on the white leather of the seat.

Ramirez looked back too.

"Is he ready for this?"

Sands' hand lifted, one digit extended, revealing he hadn't been asleep. Ramirez released a snort of laughter, while El shook his head.

"So, Ma, are we there yet?" Sands mock-whined as he sat up and brushed his hair away from his face. Next he straightened his ever-present sunglasses and jerked his T-shirt tail down. He'd started to tan again and the white gauze wound around his wrists stood out in a contrast.

"We are here."

"Oh, goodie." Sands actually rubbed his hands together.

El levered his door open and walked around to the trunk, popping it open. Despite his calluses, he winced when he touched the hot metal. Ramirez got out of the car and came around too, followed by Sands, while El pulled open the black nylon bags they'd picked up on the US side of the border. The guitar case in the backseat held only a guitar. They'd picked up their armaments from another of Sands' ubiquitous contacts.

El pulled out a black, double shoulder-holster and set it into Sands' hands. While Sands shrugged into it, El handed another shoulder-holster, cut to fit Ramirez' preferred revolver, to the former FBI agent. Then a belt holster for a second gun.

Sands tugged the holster once and held out his hands. "Guns."

El slapped the butts of two matte-black Glock nine-millimeters into Sands' hands. The ex-agent slid one into a holster and began checking the other. Satisfied, he switched and checked the second one.

Ramirez reached into the bag and brought out the guns he'd chosen when they were outfitting. He popped the cylinder open on one, checked the load, and then holstered it. The second was treated the same way.

"Ankle gun," Sands said. He propped one booted foot on the fender and took the .22 El handed over, tucking it into the boot top. "Knife."

El handed over a sleek dagger in a sheath with a clip. Sands slipped it into his other boot. El smiled, watching Sands stamp his boot to settle the cuff of his black jeans back into place.

"Clips," he said, handing them to Sands next. Ramirez was carefully pocketing speedloaders for his revolvers.

Sands fished a loose, sand-colored suit coat out of the backseat and slipped it on over his shirt and the shoulder-holsters.

El strapped on the arm rigs that held his guns under his jacket sleeves. Then he tucked a spare nine-millimeter Glock that matched Sands' pair into the back of his waistband. Next he buckled on a belt holding shotgun shells. Finally, a holster that carried two guns down the line of his spine. One was a pump action shotgun. The second was a sawed-off double barrelled shotgun that closely matched his old favorite. Last, he donned his mariachi jacket, the silver chains at the cuffs clinking delicately. Absently, he ran his thumb over one of the stylized skulls that anchored them.

Ramirez ran a hand over his goatee and then shrugged, rolling his shoulders to get loose.

Sands pulled on a pair of black leather gloves and flexed his fingers.

El drew his hair back and tied it in a ponytail. He ignored the strand that immediately pulled loose and fell over his face.

He met Ramirez eyes and nodded.

"Sands?"

A feral grin lit Sands' handsome face. "Just point me in the right direction, my friend."

A light hand on Sands' elbow guided him and the three men walked across the simmering tarmac.

They paused just before the doors. El took a deep breath.

"Let's play."

~*~

Ramirez contemplated pointing out they were in the States now and the rules were different, the police actually cared, but held his tongue.

He walked in on one side of El Mariachi. Sands was on the other.

A quick look around the restaurant showed him plenty of armed men, the same cartel types as he'd seen in Mexico. Heller and Bethel were at a booth in the back. Maybe things weren't so different from Mexico after all, he admitted to himself.

"Do you see him?" Sands breathed softly.

_"Sí,"_ Ramirez said.

"In the back," El added. He looked out from under his brows, sullen and angry.

Sands sighed impatiently. "How many others?"

"Three men at the bar, four at a table, and one with Bethel and Heller," Ramirez told him.

"Gosh, this is going to be fun," Sands said.

The few people in the restaurant who weren't involved took a good look at the three of them and bolted for the exit when El pulled the pump action shotgun over his shoulder. The goons sat up straight and went for their guns.

The rest of the firefight that followed was a blur. Ramirez drew his own gun and began shooting.

He tried to keep an eye on his allies and their targets, but things got hairy fast. Bethel was worming his way toward the front door. Sands and El were shooting their way toward Heller. One of the guys at the bar had a machine pistol.

The bullets chewed a line of splintered destruction across the restaurant, trying to catch up with El and Sands. They sprinted forward and then El tackled Sands, sending them both to the floor in the lee of a booth. El rolled onto his back and racked the shotgun, then fired at the man with the machine pistol.

_Boom. _

_Boom._

The first shot tore the gun and the man's hands away. The second shotgun blast opened a bloody, gaping hole in his chest.

Ramirez had to shoot a couple more goons then and worry about his own skin.

He heard Heller shouting at Sands, though.

"Why won't you fucking die!?"

And Sands answering, as though it was perfectly reasonable:

"Well, because you want me to, really."

El was going after Bethel, he saw, and tried to provide cover.

Watching Sands and El fight was like bloody ballet, as they spun, dodged, leaped, fell, rolled to their feet, constantly firing, one always covering as the other reloaded. Neither man let fear of being hit slow or change his course and the sheer momentum of their attack unnerved their opponents so badly none did hit them. Ramirez did his part, felt the adrenaline pull him into the dance of bullets, killing two men, throwing himself parallel to the floor and firing his gun backward, under his arm, as he fell, hitting the third man behind him as machine gun fire ate into the wall where his head should have been.

He caught sight of El engaged with four thugs, shooting two guns, one in each hand, moving like a matador.

Sands …

Where was Sands? Ramirez didn't want to imagine what kind of bloodbath El Mariachi would leave in his wake if the Cat was lost. El was saner than Sands, true, but Ramirez had seen enough of the two of them to realize that it was taking care of Sands that kept the guitar-player centered.

Ramirez scrambled to his feet, hands automatically switching a new speed-loader into his revolver. _Madre de Dios_, there, he saw Sands down on the floor of the restaurant, with Heller on top of him. Heller had one hand locked around one of Sands' wrists, the one that still held a gun, while his other clawed at Sands' face. Ramirez shuddered as Heller groped a finger into one empty socket and Sands arched in pain, crying out.

He was running toward them, trying to draw a bead on Heller as the two men fought. Sands kicked up one long leg, knee bending tight to his chest, trying to lever Heller off him. Heller laughed and dug his fingers deeper into Sands' face.

A keening cry tore its way from Sands' throat. His empty hand flailed at Heller, but the other man twisted his head away from the blind threat. Then Sands' hand slid over the top of his own boot where his leg was drawn up. Silver flashed and the dagger he'd drawn from his boot top sliced deep through Heller's throat and lodged, hilt quivering under the man's chin.

Blood in a thick, opaque scarlet jet squirted from Heller's throat as he reared back in shock and pain. Sands grabbed at the dagger hilt and pulled it away, opening the wound so that blood poured out. Heller lost his grip on Sands entirely, clutching at his neck in desperation. Crimson flooded between his fingers.

Sands' now-freed hand came up and locked into a grip on Heller's head. He reversed the dagger in his other hand and drove it unerringly through the orbit of Heller's eye and into his brain.

Heller stiffened, let out a cracked, caw-like sound, and collapsed onto Sands.

The restaurant had fallen completely silent. Ramirez' ears rang in the absence of echoing gunfire.

"Off me, get him off me," Sands was half-shouting while scrabbling at the body pinning him down. Blood ran like tears from his eye socket. Ramirez reached Sands an instant later. He grabbed Heller's shoulder and rolled the body off Sands.

Sands' hand spidered across the floor, grasping desperately for his lost gun. Ramirez realized if he reached it, Sands would shoot him, if he didn't identify himself to the blind man.

"Sands, Sands," he repeated. "Relax, it's done, you got him." He reached past Sands and nudged the gun into Sands' hand. Sands wrapped his fingers white knuckle tight on the butt. His head swiveled from side to side.

"El?" he called out. "El? _El?_"

Ramirez grabbed his arm and levered Sand up. Sands wavered.

_"El?"_

The Mariachi arrived as Sands began struggling, taking the wild armful of feral killer from Ramirez and folding him close. "Calm, _mi gato_," El said. His jacket was torn across one forearm, blood staining it. He ignored it and took Sands' chin in his hand, tipping his head to study what damage Heller had done. "Is there pain?"

"Hurts like hell," Sands admitted. He was shaking in reaction, white-faced, wobbling like a kitten.

El wiped a runnel of blood from Sands' cheekbone gently. Sands jerked his head away. "I need my dagger back."

Ramirez shrugged and kicked Heller's body onto its back. He bent and jerked the knife out. He wiped on Heller's shirt. "I've got it," he said.

"Jorge," Sands said. "You're starting to really grow on me." A sharp smile lit his face.

"Stay with him," El said to Sands. He grabbed Sands' hand and set it on Ramirez' shoulder.

"What?" Sands exclaimed. "Why? Why aren't you - "

"I left one of them alive," El explained. "To tell us what we want to know."

Sands laughed. "You're getting sneaky, El. I like that."

"Here," Ramirez said, taking Sands hand off his arm and filling it with the hilt of the dagger.

"Why, thank you, Jorge," Sands replied with manic cheerfulness. He bent and slid the blade back into the sheath inside his boot top. Standing up, he staggered to the side and grabbed at his face. "Whoa, whoa, head rush," he muttered, stumbling sideways two steps and listing. Ramirez grabbed and steadied him, growing alarmed by the way Sands scrabbled his fingers over his own face and leaned into his hold.

He turned and looked around for El, spotting him throwing an unconscious Bethel, bound hand and foot, over his shoulder like a sack of beans. His sawed-off shotgun was in his other hand.

"Let's go," El called, heading out the front door.

Ramirez opened his mouth to say they couldn't just walk away from the bodies like this, then shut it. More blood was leaking down Sands' face and he'd begun thumping the heel of his hand against his temple. He was _wet_ with Heller's blood and had smeared it all over Ramirez too. They needed to get the hell out of The Dancing Cactus before the cops showed up and began asking questions El would only answer with a bullet.

With only a small, apprehensive hesitation, Ramirez draped Sands' other arm over his shoulder, got an arm around him and started toward the door, supporting the staggering, unbalanced ex-agent. "I think you need a doctor," he said.

Sands was breathing in short, shallow breaths, barely keeping moving with Ramirez. El strode across the parking lot to their faded turquoise convertible. He opened the trunk and dumped Bethel in carelessly, then slammed the lid down with a clank.

Ramirez steered Sands to the side of the car, leaned him against it and opened the back seat door. El came around the back of the car and carefully helped him get Sands inside on the wide, leather-covered bench seat. Sands just hissed out a noiseless sort of keen and doubled over into a fetal ball.

"We should take him to hospital," Ramirez said tentatively.

El shook his head and handed the keys to Ramirez. He slid into the backseat beside Sands. "A motel. He has painkillers for when this happens."

Ramirez raised his brows. "When someone tries to shove their fingers through his eye sockets into his brains?"

"Headaches. The doctor in Mexico City said something about the _nervio óptico_ and too much stress. There is a surgery, but there has been no time for that." El shrugged helplessly.

Sands moaned.

Ramirez tightened his hand around the keys, the metal biting into palm, punishing him. He nodded and got in behind the wheel. There was nothing that could be done for Sands but drugging him into unconsciousness. A doctor or a hospital would be a recipe for disaster in the circumstances. He started the car and headed for the motel.

A series of thumps from the convertible's rear as he steered the behemoth onto the street reminded him that they had Bethel in the trunk. Bethel held the answers they needed to track down Bautista and Heller's CIA superior. Ramirez wasn't sure which would be more frightening, but he felt confident either El or Sands would break the dirty FBI agent. He'd tell them what they needed to know.

Ramirez grinned.

~*~

The motel room was such a hole the new bloodstains didn't really make much difference. Ramirez felt a little sick, but he figured that was his problem. They were leaving anyway.

Bethel was still tied to the chair, unconscious; head lolling on his chest. Snot and blood stained his shirt. A dirty cloth was knotted around his head, gagging him.

Ramirez didn't much like what Sands and El had done, but he couldn't summon any sympathy for Bethel. Not when he considered what Archuleta had endured for two weeks. Or even what Sands lived with now. Not after listening to his foul mouth and the litany of his greed.

They'd simply backed the car up to the door of the motel room, dragged Bethel out of the trunk, and left him lying in the shower stall, still tied and gagged. El brought Sands in after that, poured tequila and a couple of nameless pills down him, and left him to sleep off the headache once he'd passed out.

El and Ramirez changed into different clothes and quietly cleaned and reloaded all their weaponry. El had stripped and dressed Sands' disturbingly limp body with a parent's expertise, after washing Heller's blood away gently, getting every stubborn, sticky speck.

Ramirez went out and came back with food for all three of them after disposing of the bloody clothes. Sands had been groggy, but awake, by then, though still stretched out on the bed. El had been playing his guitar when Ramirez came back and he would have sworn he heard Sands singing too, as he walked up to the room's door.

>   
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> 
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>>> _Los besos que me diste mi amor  
> Son los que me estan matando  
> Ya las lagrimas me estan secando  
> Con mi pistola y mi corazon _
>> 
>>   
> 
> 
>   
> 

He knocked cautiously, juggling the bags of take-out, and called out, "It's Ramirez."

The guitar notes paused. The singing stopped. El's voice answered, "Come."

Ramirez unlocked the door and came in. He wasn't terribly surprised to see Sands had a gun in his hand. El was seated on the edge of the bed, cradling his latest guitar, and looking about as harmless as a mountain lion.

Ramirez was glad to see Sands awake and aware again. He set the take-out on the beat-up dresser top, watching from the corner of his eye as Sands slipped the gun back into the holster and set it beside the bed within easy reach.

El smiled at him.

"So, tell me what I smell is something to eat," Sands said. He sat up. "I'm about to starve here."

Ramirez was surprised. He'd already observed El coaxing the man into eating more than once. This was the first time Sands had shown any interest in food. He looked as relaxed as Ramirez had ever seen him, too.

El set the guitar aside and walked over. "You're hungry?" He sounded pleased.

"Sure," Sands replied, a bit of a frown in his voice.

El began unpacking the bags. "McDonald's?"

Ramirez shrugged. "Why not?"

Sands laughed lightly. "When in Rome, El … "

A strangled shout and the drumming of feet against the shower wall reminded them all of Bethel's presence. They didn't let it bother them, though, and shared out the meal of Big Macs, fries, and everything else Ramirez had bought, eating hungrily.

They talked desultorily after that. Sands prompted Ramirez to tell the story of the first top ten wanted criminal he'd busted, a Fortune Five Hundred company president who had thought he could make a better profit in partnership with the Corsican Mafia and ended up murdering five people, including an undercover FBI agent. The man had made his fortune and thumbed his nose at justice for ten long years before Ramirez took over the case against him. He enjoyed telling the story. The case had been airtight when he served the warrants on the man himself and took him into custody.

Sands admitted to growing up in Austin after his mother remarried the second time. Stepfathers were referred to as Bozo Mark One and Bozo Mark Two. His father's second wife he called The Beauty Queen. Apparently, she was younger than Sands. Ramirez decided the painkillers El had fed him earlier were still affecting him.

"Your family is alive?" El asked.

"Well, I haven't killed any of them," Sands said.

"Do you want to see them?"

Sands laughed and shook his head. "Of course, I would, I'd like to_ see _anything." He plucked a cold french fry from the detritus of their meal and ate it. "But, quite frankly, they'd be at the bottom of my list. Okay?"

_"Sí."_

They dawdled over bad, cooling coffee after that and finally Ramirez scooped up the leftovers and trash and dumped it in the garbage. El dragged Bethel out of the bathroom and dropped him in the room's only chair.

Sands sat cross-legged on the bed with one of his Glocks in his hand. El tied Bethel to the chair, cinching the ties tight. Ramirez leaned against the dresser. A tape recorder sat on it, next to his hand, the microphone aimed at Bethel. One press of his finger and it would begin recording.

Bethel kicked and squirmed, cursing through the gag. He kept thrashing his head around, those pale blue eyes flicking between Sands and Ramirez and down to El. His face was swollen and shiny, red as a cherry tomato and running with sweat. Dark stains had soaked through the bright-blue cowboy-style suit he wore.

Ramirez just stared.

Sands began.

"Just so we're all on the same page here, we're going to ask you some questions, and you're going to answer them." He cocked his head. "_Comprende_?"

Bethel glared at him.

Ramirez chuckled. Sands was completely immune to glares. Apparently, Bethel hadn't figured out that Sands couldn't see. Sands didn't act like a blind man.

"Well," Sands went on. "There's a reason you're going to tell us stuff. A very good reason." He paused. "Isn't there, guys?"

Ramirez nodded. El simply stood behind Bethel, a looming, malevolent presence waiting to cut the gag off.

Sands fingered the Glock, flicking the safety off, then on, then off, then on.

"Now, you might think, hey, I'm a heap big Federal agent, and when that gag comes off you might start shouting and yelling for help," Sands said. "You might think that you're going to bury us, lock us in a jail so deep the cockroaches are scared to stay, but you know, that would be a mistake."

He smiled again, bright and wolfish.

"And the reason it would be a mistake, good Agent Bethel, is that if you raise your voice, I will shoot you in the head. Then my friends and I will walk out of here and go along our merry way, while your bloating body cooks until the stink brings someone around to get rid of it. It's that simple."

Bethel was furious and scared, Ramirez saw.

"You may think you won't tell us anything, either," Sands said next. "But you will. You see, I used to work with your friend Heller - "

Bethel gasped.

" - and I learned a lot from him. Really. Plus, you know, I like to think I'm a kind of creative guy and I've thought of some interesting tricks myself."

Sands pulled his sunglasses down his nose and opened his eyelids. Bethel stared and paled, then grunted.

"I've had a lot of time to think about what I'd like to do to the people that did this to me. Oh, I'm Sands, in case Heller mentioned me? No? Well, it really doesn't matter. The point is, those people are all dead, even my dear old colleague, and all I have left is you."

Bethel was looking desperately at Ramirez. Ramirez picked up a spare paper napkin and rubbed a spot of something off his fingers. He didn't look away from Bethel, just ignored him.

"So I guess it's time to begin," Sands finished. "El, if you would do the honors?"

The silvery blade that flashed in the mariachi's hand was only three inches long. He sliced through Bethel's gag with it effortlessly. Bethel spat and licked dry lips. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth, the skin split from being stretched too far open.

"Fuck you, you skinny psycho."

"Oh, now, now, that was really very rude," Sands said. He slid off the bed and over to Bethel's side. The Glock was holstered. The knife he'd used on Heller appeared in his hand. He ran the point over Bethel's face, scoring through the skin when Bethel moved unexpectedly. Blood began to run and Bethel whined deep in his throat.

"You'll just have to forgive me," Sands told him lightly, brushing his fingers over Bethel's face and pausing as he encountered the slick, sticky drying spots of blood. "My technique may be a bit rusty, I'm afraid my recent disability has made me just a tad heavy-handed."

"For God's sake, Ramirez, get him away from me!" Bethel yelled. "Please! Jesus, we're both agents, you can't let him do this."

Ramirez shrugged. "I'm retired, remember?"

"Fucking wetback bastard!"

El reached around, caught Bethel's jaw in one big hand and forced his mouth shut.

"Enough. You will tell us where Bautista is."

El pulled Bethel's head back until he was staring up into El's dark, furious eyes.

"Tell us or Sands will make sure you are even less of man than you are now."

"I don't know, El, is that possible?"

In the end, Bethel told them everything he knew about Bautista, including Heller's speculation that the drug lord would retreat to his home in Tampico. Ramirez started the recorder and taped everything. Sands didn't go as far as he'd feared he would, maybe because El was there, maybe because Bethel broke easily.

Bethel detailed every dirty, sordid deal he'd made since he first sold out to the Barillos. When he admitted burning Archuleta, Ramirez barely controlled his own impulse to kill him. Instead, he smiled and told Bethel he'd be sending copies of that one to Agent Holliday, the El Paso SAC, and the Department of Justice, along with a few select newspapers.

In the end, they left Bethel there. He wasn't worth killing.

Ramirez called the local police department after they drove into Cuidad Juarez, heading south for Tampico. The copies of the tapes went into the mail. Another set was dispatched to Langley, to a man Sands named but didn't say anything else about. In fact, his only comment was, "That will fix _her_ wagon."

El drove.

"Why are we going after Bautista again?" Sands asked from the back seat, but he didn't sound upset.

"I keep my word."

"Peachy."

"I made a deal with La Araña to find you," El finally explained.

Sands lit a cigarette.

"You did?"

_"Sí."_

"Okay, we're going after Bautista," Sands said, sounding very satisfied.

**Don't Look Back**

They were waiting when he walked into the darkened library that served as his office. It was late and the house was dark, almost silent, almost empty, with only a few men on guard outside. Esteban Bautista walked along the tiled hall barefoot. The lights flashed on as he flipped the switch, bright enough to blind all but one of them.

Lights meant nothing to a blind man.

Esteban remembered that Sands had killed four of his men and wounded Heller before they brought him back to the estate in Chiapas. Sands would and could shoot him. The gun leveled at Esteban didn't waver. The black muzzle-opening seemed to expand and fill Esteban's vision.

He swallowed hard.

"Gentlemen," he said, voice rasping just a little.

Sands was seated in Esteban's own leather-covered desk chair. He was leaning one elbow against the well-padded arm, holding the pistol almost casually, the picture of nonchalance.

Looking past him, Esteban studied the nondescript older man with the neat beard, thinning hair, and cynical, basset eyes. He was leaning against the massive desk that had been handcrafted for Esteban's father. It was that indefinable cop look that identified him at last: this had to be Ramirez, the former Federal agent.

A shorter man, with long curly hair, in a dark-striped gray mariachi outfit was helping himself to the liquor at the small bar along the back wall. He raised a glass to Esteban, then emptied it. A pistol sat on the bar next to his other hand.

Esteban had no idea who he was

Not _the_ Mariachi.

_El Mariachi_ was the taller, glowering man watching him from under lowered brows. A dark, handsome man, lean and panther-lithe, who radiated an internal power. The sort of man others would follow despite themselves.

Esteban blinked, though, at the final figure in the library. Perched on the edge of the big desk was Cochi's girlfriend, Juana. She didn't look the same, however; a sinking feeling told Esteban that this was the real woman and the other had been no more than an act.

This woman wore a snug black T-shirt, faded blue jeans, and a gunbelt on her hips. Her black hair was drawn back in a tight, shining braid. Silver bracelets adorned her wrists. Instead of looking cheap, as Esteban had grown used to, she looked hard and deadly.

The flat look in her eyes reminded him of Blanca.

Sands sighed. "I wanted to take this moment to thank you, you know," he said. He gestured gracefully toward the desk. A stack of files and disks that Esteban knew had been in his personal safe was spread across the top. "You keep such good records. It does make things so much easier for us."

Esteban drew himself up straight. "My guards - "

"Are dead," the second mariachi slurred. He poured himself another shot of expensive tequila.

Esteban took a deep breath, understanding everything. His gaze returned to the woman.

"Juana," he said. "That's not who you really are, is it?"

She gave him a tight-lipped smile.

"Who are you really?"

"La Araña."

He nodded to himself. "I was a fool to work with the CIA, wasn't I?" It was Heller's plan that had created the partnership with the Zapatistas.

_"Sí,"_ Sands said.

Esteban looked at El Mariachi.

"You should remember that, working with this one," he said, nodding at Sands.

"Oh, but I'm … retired," Sands said.

"Why come after me?" Esteban asked.

El Mariachi finally spoke.

"Chucho."

Esteban closed his eyes.

El Mariachi plucked the Glock from Sands' hands. He glanced at La Araña. "We are finished after this."

She inclined her head.

He aimed the pistol at Esteban.

Sands said impatiently, "Just pull the damn trigger, El."

Esteban had one last instant in which he saw El Mariachi's finger tighten on the trigger.

Then there was nothing.

~*~

Veronica was eating a late breakfast outside, next to the still blue water of her pool, after swimming her morning laps. She was wrapped in a heavy, white terrycloth robe and absently swinging one bare foot as she ate a croissant. A towel was crumpled on the chair next to her, along with the swim cap that had protected her blonde hair from the chlorine. Concealed beneath was a Beretta pistol.

She wore sunglasses. A cell phone sat next to her plate. The file she'd been reading as she ate sat closed and weighed down by the coffee carafe. A slight frown creased her forehead. The reports from Mexico were uniformly disappointing. The homicide report on Abe Heller, forwarded from El Paso, was genuinely disturbing. Fortunately, it didn't seem like she would have to initiate any clean-up actions.

She turned her head, surprised, as the men in dark suits appeared.

The one in the lead she recognized, Sam Davis, a squat, balding man with the reputation of a bulldog, who ran counterintelligence operations for the agency.

"Veronica Naismith," he said, "you are under arrest for - "

She didn't wait for the list of crimes. Her hand snaked under the towel, grabbed the Beretta and fired it at him. The towel caught fire as the bullet passed through it. The bullet tore into her nemesis' hip and he staggered back and fell.

Veronica started to bolt for the house, confident the flunkies wouldn't shoot her.

"Drop the gun!"

She kept running.

The gunshots that ripped into her torso took her completely by surprise. She staggered, in sudden agonizing pain. Blood stained the white robe crimson.

Her bare foot slipped on the wet tile along the edge of the pool. She half-turned, disbelieving, and saw Davis sink back onto the tiles, dropping the gun he'd used to shoot her. Then gravity pulled her over and she fell into the pool.

A last thought ran through her head as the cold water splashed up around her. Her hair was going to turn green.

Sam Davis clutched at his hip and stared up at the blue, blue sky.

One of his men was calling for an ambulance. Another was running for the medical kit in the van they'd meant to take Naismith away in.

"Fuck," Sam said conversationally.

"Sir?" said his third man.

"Fuck," Sam repeated.

He rolled his head to the side and watched as the soaked terrycloth robe pulled off Veronica's body and sank to the bottom of the pool. Long streamers of red spread through the water. Her hair floated in a cloud around her head.

"Someone find her gun and make sure it's taken into evidence."

"Yes sir."

Sam rolled his eyes.

"Fuck."

_You're laughing somewhere, aren't you, Sands?_

~*~

Sands wasn't laughing as he leaned against El. They were standing in a graveyard and El's arm was wrapped around his waist. Gathered with them were Ramirez, Reyes, and Pablo. Fideo knelt in front of the neatly cleaned grave, laying out his offerings: a bottle of Herradurra tequila, sweet bread, and paper flowers.

_El Día de los Muertos._

Lorenzo lay under the earth, far from where he'd fallen, in the small, unassuming cemetery of Villa Perdidos.

Sands was quiet, hiding the shudders running through him. The villagers celebrated the Day of the Dead in a quieter fashion than in Culiacan. There was no carnival, no parade. There would be no coup attempt, no gunfire and death in the streets, either. But Sands couldn't stop remembering.

If he hadn't known El was going to the graves of his wife and child, Sands wouldn't have stirred from the old monastery for anything short of a gun held to his head. He'd cleaned up, though, and donned a silk shirt Reyes had told him was the color of dark wine, along with black leather and his guns. No tacky T-shirts or asshole remarks if they were going to visit the graves, no matter how much he needed to distance himself from his own memories of a year before. El had waited for him silently and they had walked through the village to the cemetery together.

El had quietly cleaned his daughter's grave and then Carolina's, while Sands waited silently. He'd heard the tiny sound of something small and metal being set on the gravestone, the sound of a thin chain running from El's fingers. He thought it might be the locket El carried in his pocket.

Then they had joined Fideo at Lorenzo's grave.

Ramirez' unofficial little family had shown up a few minutes later.

Pablo had more flowers, fresh ones that Sands could smell when the breeze shifted. When he hugged Sands, he was taller than he had been before. Sands wondered, but didn't ask, why they weren't visiting the graves of Pablo's family. Perhaps there were no graves. Just for the day, he was going to hold his tongue and try for some tact.

Reyes had brought a picnic basket of goodies. In what Sands privately thought was both a weird and morbid practice, they lounged about the graveyard and ate right there.

El left guitar strings for Lorenzo.

Sands paused and then left his own remembrance: a fistful of bullets.

As they left the graveyard, Reyes said, "You know, there are already stories about Lorenzo and you two."

"Of course, there are, Gracie," Sands said. "This is Mexico. There are always stories."

_**The Wrong Question**_ __

_Once there was a handsome young man who was a mariachi. The young man fell in love with a beautiful young girl, who agreed to marry him if he made a fortune and built her a fine house. But the beautiful young girl had another suitor, the don's evil son, and while the young man was away making his fortune and building a fine house, the don's evil son stole her away. _

_And no matter how the young man searched, he could not find them. _

_The young man prayed for help from God, but none came. He prayed for help from the Devil, but none came. At last, he sat down in despair and began to play his guitar. He played all day and he played all night, until blood ran from his fingers to the ground and the guitar's strings broke. And when he looked up, two dead men had appeared and he knew them: El Mariachi and El Hombre Sin Ojos, the spirits of revenge and of balance. _

_The young man cried out to them to find the don's evil son for him, for he had stolen the young man's beloved. _

_And El Mariachi asked what the young man would give them if they found the don's evil son for him? _

_The young man first offered him the fine house he had built for his beloved, but El Mariachi refused, so he offered his fortune, but again, El Mariachi refused, for after all what use are a fine house and a fortune without love? So at last, the young man offered El Mariachi all the music he would ever make, and El Mariachi agreed, but said he must give El Hombre payment, too. _

_Once more, the young man offered his fine house and his fortune, and once more he was refused, for after all what use are a fine house and a fortune to a dead man? So at last he offered El Hombre his sight, if he would find the don's evil son, and El Hombre agreed. _

_From the dark of the moon to the dark of the moon, El Mariachi and El Hombre Sin Ojos searched all of Mexico for the don's evil son, and brought him to the young man at last. _

_Give us our payment, El Mariachi and El Hombre told him, for here we have found the don's evil son for you. _

_But where was his beloved? cried out the young man. _

_This you did not ask us, El Mariachi told him, or we would have told you she was cold in the grave since she was stolen away. _

_At this, the young man cried out in despair, asking what he must pay to be united with his beloved? _

_But El Mariachi would not answer until he was paid, and El Hombre would not answer until he was paid. The young man gave El Mariachi his music and without it, he could not hear. He gave El Hombre Sin Ojos his sight, and without it, he could not see. Then the don's evil son rose up and stabbed the young man in the heart, exclaiming he could pay with his life to be united with his beloved. _

_Murderer, El Mariachi declared, I heard you, and revenge must have its due for the young man's beloved. _

_Thief, El Hombre declared, I saw you, and balance must be restored, for you have taken a man's life and now must lose yours. _

_Then El Mariachi took hold of the murderer's right hand and El Hombre Sin Ojos took hold of the thief's left hand and they dragged the don's evil son down to the Underworld. _

-fin

**Author's Note:**

> Giving Sands family in Austin is a nod toward one of the deleted scenes on the OUATIM DVD, where Sands tells Nicolas that he knew a rodeo clown back in Austin, so I knew he'd been there at some point. One oblique reference to PotC, another vague nod to Goldeneye. If Sands seems saner in this story than the movie, I will argue that the trauma of being blinded would either send a man completely over the edge or jolt him back onto a saner track. Plenty of other authors have handled Sands' psychosis better than I ever could, I decided to try writing him this way.
> 
> Originally written and posted in 2004.
> 
> Beta-ed by rez_lo.


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